LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

*BS W1 

ia_: 

UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



BIBLE HARMONY: 



A STUDY OF THE BIBLE AS A WHOLE, 



SHOWING THAT FROM GENESIS TO THE REVELATION 

IT IS A PERFECTLY HARMONIOUS HISTORY 

OF THE PROGRESSIVE CREATION 

OF MAN. 



BY 



A. P. ADAMS, M.A. 

t 



$. 1 



"Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy Word was 
unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart." — Jer. xv. 16. 
" I create evil, I, Jehovah." — Isa. xlv. 7. 



SECOND EDITION. 






, OCT 6 '890 



BEVERLY, MASS.: 
DROWEHT PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

1890. 






Copyright, 1890, 
By A. P. ADAMS. 



All Rights Reserved. 



TyI aAPHl B-J .1. S. Ol BHING \ Co., BOSTON. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface to Second Edition iii 

Introduction 1 

CHAPTER 

I. Interpretation 21 

II. " All Things are of God." 52 

III. The Worlds and the Ages 65 

IV. God's Work and Plan 92 

V. " What think ye of Christ ? " 125 

VI. Christ's Divinity and Humanity 142 

VII. The Atonement 167 

VIII. " What is Man ? " 191 

IX. Free Will 203 

X. The Problem of Evil 221 

XI. Probation and Judgment 236 

XII. Life and Death .... 249 

XIII. Resurrection 268 

XIV. Retribution 277 

XV. Creation 312 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



The present volume has grown out of two pam- 
phlets published in 1882, respectively entitled " Bible 
Theology " and " Endless Torments not Scriptural." 
The substance of those two pamphlets is incorpo- 
rated into the present volume, with much additional 
matter ; the whole rewritten and rearranged in such 
a manner, it is hoped, as will better conserve the end 
intended, viz. the presentation of suggestive thought 
in the way of truth. The author does not claim 
that in the following pages he has presented the 
absolute truth ; but he hopes that the reader will 
find much suggestive thought in the line of truth, 
which will prove a help in the way of life, — that 
life which is knowledge of God, and of him whom 
he has sent (John xvii. 3). 

Two objects especially moved the author to this 
work. First, to show that the Bible is a book of 
glorious harmony throughout ; and second, to show 
the process of creation. The reader will judge 
whether these two objects have been accomplished. 

In harmony with the first object the title of the 
book was changed from Bible Theology (the title of 
the first edition) to Bible Harmony. It was thought 
that the latter title would express more nearly the 



iv Preface to Second Edition. 

scope and purpose of the book, and would be less 
liable to misapprehension. The word theology has 
a conventional meaning, and to many persons it con- 
veys an idea of something dry, uninteresting, and 
repellent ; it is a grand word in itself, but in the 
minds of many it is associated by general usage with 
the above ideas. Furthermore, I did not wish to 
imply by the title of the book any reflection upon 
any work of a similar character ; to call it Bible 
Theology seems to insinuate that it stands alone in 
this respect. I wish to convey no such idea ; it is 
only with " all saints " (Eph. iii. 18) that we are 
able to apprehend all truth. I give in the volume a 
brief summary of my thought on Bible subjects, as it 
has come to me from various sources during the 
last twelve years. These views seem to me to har- 
monize the Bible in all its parts, better than any 
other views that have ever come to my knowledge ; 
hence the title, Bible Harmony. 

I will add that the book is not written for scholars 
nor for theologians, but for those who have received 
" the love of the truth " (2 Thess. ii. 10), for the 
truth's sake, and prize it above all things else : it is 
written, as already intimated, not so much to Lay 
down positive doctrines, as to suggest fruitful lines 
of thought, and to start inquiry, that the Word may 
he more fully opened np to the reader. 

One other remark, — and to this I ask the reader's 
strict attention. I have been especially careful in 
all Bible quotations, that they should he correct and 
tine to the original. Bu1 the Bible student will 



Preface to Second Edition. v 

notice variations in my quotations from the common 
version, and I have not always given the reference 
to chapter and verse. In regard to the variations I 
will say that none of them are made without the 
best authority, which the reader will usually find by 
referring to the margin of the old version, or to the 
text or margin of the new. I have omitted the 
references because the quotations are so numerous 
that the insertion of all the references would need- 
lessly encumber the page. With the help of a con- 
cordance (which no one interested in the Bible 
should be without) every passage may be easily 
found, and by consulting the old and new versions, 
text and margin, the variations will be accounted 
for. In some very few cases I have quoted from the 
original, or from versions other than those indicated 
above ; such quotations, however, will be found to be 
fully verified in the context. 

I would add that I make no claim of originality in 
the thoughts here presented. God, by his spirit, has 
made me rejoice many times in my meditations and 
study, by showing me " wonderful things out of his 
law." Dear saints, too, to whom I am glad to be 
indebted, have been the channels through whom 
" unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, 
has this grace been given." As another has said, 
" Wherever it can be shown that we are not original, 
so much the better ; our desire should be to enter the 
circle of the great dependence of all things, assured 
that there is no independence of heart or mind on 
any other terms." At least I may say for myself, 



vi Preface to Second Edition. 

that I have spoken from the depths of a most pro- 
found conviction. " Having the same spirit of faith, 
I believed, therefore have I spoken" The great joy 
I have had in these precious truths is such that I 
desire to make others partakers with me ; hence this 
volume. I have drawn freely from every source 
available for fact and argument, my purpose being 
to give the reader the strongest evidence possible on 
points advanced; I would not sacrifice force, and 
strength, and clearness, for the sake of a strained 
originality ; it is the truth we want, no matter from 
what source it may come ; it is the truth that sanc- 
tifies (John xvii. 17) and makes us free (John viii. 
32). May God give us this freedom — freedom of 
brain, and mind, and heart, that we may "grow in 
grace " and " go on unto perfection," untrammelled 
by traditions or superstitions. With Faber I ex- 
claim, — 

" Oh, for freedom ! for freedom ! in worshipping God, 
For the mountain-top feeling of generous souls, 
For the health, for the air, of the hearts deep and broad, 
Where grace, not in rills, but in cataracts rolls." 

And now unto the Lord of the harvest is this 
effort committed, trusting that there is hero some 
"good seed," that it will fall into "good ground," 
and bring forth fruit to the honor and glory of him 

who alone can give the increase. 

I'.i \ BEL! , M LBS., All-list, L890. 



BIBLE HARMONY. 



>X*<c 



INTRODUCTION. 

It is a sad fact, widely noted and deeply deplored 
by every lover of humanity and of God, that the 
spectacle that the Christian church presents in the 
world to-clay is one of discord, inconsistency, and 
failure. By the Christian church I mean the nomi- 
nal Christian church as an outward, visible organiz- 
ation of men and women, having for its ostensible 
object the inculcation and advancement of religion 
and morality. 

I designate no particular branch of the church, as 
Protestant or Catholic ; I refer to no particular sect 
or denomination, but apply the above remark to the 
nominal Christian church as a whole. I say that this 
ecclesiastical organization presents, first, a spectacle 
of discordancy and variance, forasmuch as we see it 
broken up into numberless parties and clans, all call- 
ing themselves by the name of Christ, and yet for 
the most part entirely lacking in organic union, to a 
considerable extent opposed to one another, and in 
not a few instances aggressively and even bitterly 
antagonistic. This is simply a fact which no honest 

l 



2 Bible Harmony. 

intelligent person will deny. "We will briefly note 
one or two illustrations. 

A correspondent writing home from Japan informs 
us that fronting on a certain square in that country 
are the headquarters of tweh r e Christian missions, 
all working separately and some in opposition to one 
another. What a spectacle for the heathen mind to 
contemplate of the " one body " of the " one Lord " ! 
Is it any wonder, as the correspondent adds, that the 
Japanese people write to the mission authorities at 
London, " Don't send us any more different hinds 
of Christianity " ? 

In the Magazine of Christian Literature for April 
is an article by Dr. James McCosh, ex-president of 
Princeton College, on " Federation of Churches to 
secure that the Gospel be preached to Every Crea- 
ture." The learned writer first remarks on the 
importance of our Lord's command to go into all 
the world and preach the gospel to every creature, 
and greatly deplores the fact that " nearly nineteen 
centuries have run their course, and }~et this com- 
mand has not been fulfilled." He attributes this 
failure to the lack of union among t ho various Chris- 
tian sects, and continues thus: "I am pained and 
perplexed more than I can tell to find that in conse- 
quence, to a huge; extent, of the separation of the 
churches, the Lord's command lias not been carried 
out, and the gospel preached to every creature. I 
feel as il'al (he judgment day sonic one might stand 
up and plead against us on this account. So I have 

been anxiously pondering the question whether, prior 



Bible Harmony. 3 

to our reaching a full union of the churches, there 
might not be a practical means of bringing them to 
such a union as to have our Lord's command obeyed. 
If we cannot yet have an Incorporation, let us have a 
Federation." 

What a confession the above words imply ! How 
deplorable is that condition of the church it sets 
before us ! The Saviour's latest and most important 
command unfulfilled, because there is not sufficient 
agreement among his professed children to act to- 
gether ! There are numbers enough ; there is wealth 
enough; there is abundance of every requisite and 
supply: what a power the whole Christian church 
would be, all consecrated and united ! What could 
they not do then ! But alas ! they are divided into 
numberless factions, and in many instances are wast- 
ing their energies against one another, instead of 
laboring together as one united family; and the 
consequence is that the dark portions of the conti- 
nents must wait for the enlightenment that the 
Lord's disciples could give them, until differences 
of opinions and variations of creeds may be adjusted 
and agreed upon. Meantime hundreds of thousands 
of human beings for whom Christ died are perishing 
every year, thrust into eternity without even so much 
as ever having heard the name of the true God, or 
of our Saviour Jesus Christ. 

Now the brother above quoted, like some others of 
God's children, has become impatient at this neglect, 
and in shame thereof and fear of the consequences 
he casts about to see if something cannot be done. 



4 Bible Harmony. 

He sees the difficulty that lies in the way, and, de- 
spairing of overcoming it, he proposes a compromise, 

— not a union, but a federation, of the churches; that 
is, a loose association of the various sects for a given 
purpose, a coalition of convenience and expediency 
merely, while yet the elements of discord and vari- 
ance are in full force and sway. How much, think 
you, would the Christian church accomplish by such 
a pseudo-union? Opposing political parties may 
thus join together sometimes in certain crises, and 
make common cause for the nonce, but the only 
union that is possible for the church of Christ is 
" the unity of the spirit" (Eph. iv. 3). Without 
this, it is helpless as an organization. 

I have also said that the nominal Christian church 
presents to the world a spectacle of inconsistency. 
I do not think I need to give any extended proof of 
this proposition. Take the nominal Christian church 
as a whole all over the world, — Romish, Russian, 
Lutheran, English, the various sects in America, etc., 

— and try them by the precepts of Christ, — say the 
teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, — and who 
will say that it will not be found radically and sadly 
wauling? Take the principles of self-denial, sepa- 
rateness from the world, non-resistance to evil, aban- 
donment <»f worldly riches, quiet submission to wrong 
and injustice, almsgiving, lasting, humility, meek- 
ness, self-crucifixion, and such like, and what son of 
exemplification do we find o\' these virtues in the 
average church membership? In short, is it not a 
sad fact (hat inconsistency is a general characteristic 



Bible Harmony. 5 

of the nominal church, the standing reproach of 
Christians in the eyes of the world, and to such an 
extent that it can be truthfully said of the church of 
to-day, as of the Jewish church in the days of the 
apostle, that the name of God is blasphemed among 
the Gentiles through you ? 

Again, I have said that the nominal Christian 
church stands before the world to-day as (to say the 
least) a partial failure. This is confessed on every 
hand; it is indicated in the quotation already pre- 
sented from the article of Dr. McCosh that nearly 
nineteen centuries have passed, and yet the Saviour's 
command to preach the gospel to every creature has 
not been fulfilled. The fact is that nearly eighteen 
centuries had passed away, since the days of the apos- 
tles and their immediate successors, before the church 
began to obey that command ; for all of the great 
missionary organizations of to-day have come into 
existence within the last hundred years, and notwith- 
standing all that has been done thus far, yet still 

" the nations sit beneath 
The darkness of o'erspreading death." 

One of the most striking presentations of the above 
sad fact appears in a new book by Dr. Charles Au- 
gustus Briggs, of the Union Theological Seminary, 
— a book bearing the significant and suggestive title 
of " Whither ? " i.e. whither is the church drifting ? 
This is the great question which the writer proposes, 
and tries to answer. Speaking of the failure of the 
church in missionary work, the author expresses him- 



G Bible Harmony. 

self thus : " The work of foreign missions lias 
assumed vast dimensions in our times. The whole 
world has been opened to the preaching of the 
gospel. The Christian church has an opportunity 
of serving Christ such as it has never had before 
since the first advent of our Lord. Great progress 
in foreign missions has been made in the present cen- 
tury. But any one who looks at the vastness of the 
heathen world and the countless millions who have 
never heard of the glad tidings of redemption by 
Jesus Christ, and considers the wealth and power of 
Christian nations, will see that the Christian church 
has not grasped the situation, and that Christian 
people are incurring a dreadful guilt before God, if 
the doctrine of the lost condition of these heathen 
be a true one. It may well be asked which are the 
more guilty, those who need the gospel and have it 
not, or those who have the gospel and do not value 
it sufficiently to give it to those who cannot be saved 
without it? From this point of view it may be more 
tolerable in the day of judgment for Pekin, Cal- 
cutta, and Tokio than for London, New York, and 
Chicago." 

In their mission work aearer home the church has 
even more signally failed. It would seem that the 
power of the church ought to be especially Eeli in 
the great centres where Christians are massed, in the 
great cities of the world, where there are hundreds 
and even thousands o\' churches and hundreds of 
thousands of nominal Christians; there if anywhere 
the church ought to be a mighty [tower to s\\a\ and 



Bible Harmony. 7 

control and mould ; and yet the truth is that in just 
such centres as these, of all other places, the weak- 
ness and inefficienc}- of the church is most glaringly 
manifested. In these great cities wickedness runs 
riot, corruption reigns, the rum power is most potent, 
and the masses are godless to the last degree, while 
the churches are very apt to be mere places of social 
resort for particular cliques of the respectable, having 
but little power or influence outside of its own nar- 
row pale. In illustration of this point I will again 
quote from "Whither?": "One of the most distress- 
ing signs of the times is the failure of the church to 
evangelize the masses in the great cities. There is 
a chasm between the poorer classes and those who 
are comfortable and wealthy. The gospel is glad 
tidings to the poor, and yet the poor have not that 
interest in the gospel that we have a right to expect ; 
the churches do not make sufficient provision for 
them, and do not reach them in any adequate meas- 
ure. The free churches of America have failed in 
providing the gospel for the poor by private benev- 
olence, no less than the established churches of 
Europe by inadequate provision of the state." 

Thus, and in many other ways, is the failure of the 
church apparent. I do not disparage what the 
church has done. God forbid. But I say that in 
comparison with what, according to her resources, 
she might have done and what there is to do, what 
she has done is as nothing, — simply making her 
failure, on the whole, all the more apparent by 
comparison. 



8 Bible Harmony. 

It is certainly, then, no misstatement, or unwarranted 
assertion, to say that the Christian church to-day pre- 
sents to the world a spectacle of discord, inconsist- 
ency, and failure ; and the consequences are a great 
loss of its power and influence, a lessening of its dig- 
nity and standing. The poor, who should be especially 
benefited by the preaching of the gospel, lose their 
confidence in the intentions and ability of the church ; 
and the irreligious in the so-called upper classes, the 
cultured and refined, treat her pretensions with quiet 
disdain or open contempt. Meanwhile, the church 
itself, instead of standing before the world stately 
and dignified, respecting herself and commanding 
respect, seems rather inclined to bow to the world in 
many things, yielding to its unholy demands and 
seeking its support, pandering in many ways to its 
taste and truckling for its approval, thus forcibly 
reminding us of that apostate organization so sug- 
gestively symbolized in the Apocalypse (chap, xvii.) 
as a harlot woman seated on a beast; i.e. the un- 
faithful church, which should be the spouse of Christ 
(2 Cor. xi.), supported by the beastly world, — since 
a woman in scripture is a symbol of an ecclesiastical 
organization, and a beasl is the symbol of the world- 
power (Dan. vii.). 

Moreover, the church is greatly agitated over cer- 
tain doctrina] questions, especially in regard to future 
retribution. Many in the churches arc becoming 
disaffected and are diverging widely from the old 
orthodoxy. I speak advisedly when I Bay old ortho- 
dox} ; for the disaffected ones are so numerous, and 



Bible Harmony. 9 

many of them stand so high in the church, that the 
conservative branch hardly dare call them heterodox, 
and so their position is designated as the " new ortho- 
doxy." Thus we have existing in the church this 
paradoxical condition of things : viz. two systems of 
doctrine opposed the one to the other, and yet both 
" orthodox " ! Such a state of things, implying as it 
does that things that are unequal to each other are 
equal to the same thing, contradicts axiomatic truth, 
and is a fair illustration of the confusion and disorder 
that prevails in modern theological circles. Of course, 
the term " orthodoxy " in the above phrases has lost 
entirely its broad, strict sense, and is simply used as a 
narrow technical term to indicate the dominant belief, 
whether right or wrong. The term that ought to be 
used is Orthodoxism ; for orthodoxy in these modern 
times has degenerated to a mere ism. Upon this 
point I will quote again from Dr. Briggs. 

" It is necessary to distinguish," he says, " between 
true orthodoxy and false orthodoxy — between ortho- 
doxy and orthodoxzsm. Orthodoxism assumes to 
know the truth, and is unwilling to learn; it is 
haughty and arrogant, assuming the divine preroga- 
tives of infallibility and inerrancy ; it hates all truth 
that is unfamiliar to it and persecutes it to the utter- 
most. But orthodoxy loves the truth; it is ever 
anxious to learn, for it knows how greatly the truth 
of God transcends human knowledge ; it follows the 
truth, as Ruth did Naomi, wherever it leads ; it is 
meek, lowly, and reverent ; it is full of charity and 
love ; it does not recognize an infallible pope ; it docs 



10 Bible Harmony. 

not bow to an infallible theologian ; it has only one 
teacher and master, — the enthroned Saviour, Jesus 
Christ, — and expects to be guided by his spirit into 
all truth." A few paragraphs further the author con- 
tinues thus : " That man or church whose orthodoxy 
does not make progress ceases thereby to be orthodox, 
and from the necessities of the case becomes hetero- 
dox ; he refuses to accept the truth that is offered 
him by the advances in science, philosophy, history, 
and the more exact study of the sacred scriptures ; 
he is heterodox in that he falls short of the revealed 
truth that the truly orthodox have already accepted ; 
he is also heterodox in all that he does accept and 
teach ; for he keeps his thinking and teaching in the 
shadow of stereotyped forms of thought ; he declines 
to bring his knowledge into the full light of the 
truth, which like the sun has risen higher toward its 
zenith ; he prefers his darkness to the light of God ; 
he fears to look the truth in the eyes, lest he should 
be convicted of error, and be compelled to change his 
position, his convictions and statements. Intellectual 
timidity and cowardice are not consistent with Chris- 
tian orthodoxy. True orthodoxy is brave, manly, 
and aggressive; it marches forward. Truth i^ so 
connected and interwoven in an organism, that an 
advance in any department exerts an important Influ- 
ence Upon (lie whole system. Any man or ehnrch 
that refuses to accept the discoveries of science, or 
the truths of philosophy, or the facts o( history, or 

the new light that breaks forth from the word o( 

God to the devoted student, iui the pretence thai it 



Bible Harmony. 11 

conflicts with his orthodoxy or the orthodoxy of the 
standards of his church, prefers the traditions of men 
to the truth of God, has become unfaithful to the 
calling and aims of the Christian disciple, has left 
the companionship of Jesus and his apostles, and has 
joined the Pharisees, the enemies of the truth. 4 He 
that is born of God heareth God's words.' The man 
who has within him the spirit of truth, and is follow- 
ing the guidance of the divine spirit of truth, will 
hail the truth and embrace it, whether he has seen 
it before or not; and he will not be stayed by the 
changes that he fears may be necessary in his pre- 
conceptions or prejudices, or his civil, social, or eccle- 
siastical position. A traditional attitude of mind is 
one of the worst foes to orthodoxy. We have an 
infallible standard of orthodoxy in the sacred scrip- 
tures. God himself, speaking in his holy word to the 
believer, is the infallible guide in all questions of 
religion, doctrine, and morals." 

I am glad to give my readers this quotation, lengthy 
though it be ; for in the first place, it says just what I 
wish to say myself, and, coming from one of reputa- 
tion and acknowledged standing in the church, it will 
have more weight with some who are not willing to 
take truth for authority, but must have authority for 
the truth. Moreover, the above clearly defined dis- 
tinction between orthodoxy and orthodoxism serves 
us two good turns : it rescues a good word from bad 
company. I have always felt somewhat loth to use 
the word " orthodoxy " in its conventional sense, as 
simply expressing the prevailing belief for the time 



12 Bible Harmony. 

being, without any regard to its truth or falsity ; the 
word in its strict sense is positive and grand, and I 
have always felt it to be a shame to degrade it to the 
vague and narrow limits of the popular usage ; never- 
theless it seemed needful so to use it. But Dr. Briggs 
gives us just the word we need for this popular idea, — 
orthodoxism, — that just expresses it; and henceforth 
we may use the word " orthodoxy " only in its legiti- 
mate significance. He is orthodox who has received 
— not the whole truth, none are so endowed as yet, 
for " that which is perfect " has not yet come, — but 
he who has received " the love of the truth " (2 Thess. 
ii. 10) ; this is the straight way to " the perfect man." 
Thus we have an ill-used word rescued and a suitable 
word supplied ; and I would ask the reader to bear in 
mind that it is in the foregoing significance that these 
two words are used in the following pages of this 
volume. 

Now, what is the drift in the churches of these 
unfavorable elements that we have noted ? Whither 
do they tend? I answer, to confusion ; to perplexity, 
vagueness, and disintegration ; this is the condition 
into which the church has drifted; a restless condi- 
tion of doubt, uncertainty, and vacillation, stirred 
up, unsettled, drifting. On this point again we are 
supported by Dr. Briggs. The suggestive name of 
his book — " Whither ? " — indicates this, as already 
intimated. The headings of the Ion chapters of 
his book indicate il still more significantly, they are 
as follows: Drifting, Orthodoxy, Changes, Shifting, 
Excesses, Failures, Departures, Perplexities, Barriers, 



Bible Harmony. 13 

Thither. Take these suggestive chapter-headings in 
connection with the title of the book itself — 
"Whither?" — and the terms will fairly express 
the true condition of the Christian church to-day ; 
they constitute a perfect word-picture of its internal 
status. 

One short sentence from the book will still further 
illustrate this. Speaking of a particular branch of 
the church, he says : " The Presbyterian church is not 
orthodox, judged by its own standards. It has neither 
the old orthodoxy, nor the new orthodoxy. It is in 
perplexity ; it is drifting toward an unknown and a 
mysterious future." What is true of this particular 
sect is no less true of the entire church ; as a whole, 
it is most decidedly unsettled, perplexed, and drift- 
ing. Witness the so-called " Andover controversy " 
and the " new departure " movement ; witness the 
widespread discussion on future retribution and gen- 
eral eschatology, especially the much-belabored doc- 
trine of posthumous probation ; witness also the seri- 
ous disturbances and complications, amounting almost, 
if not quite, to a schism, even in the conservative, 
fixed, and professedly never-changing Romish church, 
led on by an ever-increasing number of disaffected 
priests, nuns, and other ecclesiastical officials. The 
whole Christian church is rent and torn, dismem- 
bered and distracted by these conflicting forces ; in 
consequence of which it is shorn of its strength, like 
Samson bereft of his locks, and it stands to-day al- 
most helpless before the giant evils that curse man- 
kind, and ruthlessly trample on their rights, crushing 
alike body and mind and heart. 



14 Bible Harmony. 

Millions of hands are stretched out to the church 
in this our day for help ; not alone in so-called hea- 
then lands, but in Christendom, — in the very centres 
of church work, right where it is (or ought to be) 
the strongest in numbers, in wealth, and in social 
status ; millions of pairs of eyes wait upon her with 
longing expectation ; millions of overburdened hearts 
yearn toward her, knocking at her windows, beating 
at her doors, calling to her in accents of the deepest 
entreaty from the wide sea of life, asking for the 
bread of life, for body and mind, and in many cases 
receiving a stone, if not a scorpion. Verily the 
church does not reach the masses. Let the church 
then beware of the masses. It has been the history 
of the world that every institution, political, social, 
or religious, that wrongs or ignores the masses, is 
generally set aside and abolished by the masses ; and 
so will it be to the world's end. The masses belong 
to God ; He is the Father of the spirits of all flesh, — 
the One Universal Father. The man is more than 
the church (using the latter term in its general 
acceptation) ; or, in other words, it is more important 
to consider the worshipper than the form o( worship : 
or still broader, the masses are of more importance 
than any one class. 

" God, who counts by souls, not stations, 
Loves and prospers you and me ; 
For to him all Earned distinctions 
Arc as pebbles in the sea." 

Thus the church fco-daj is tried at humanity's bar 

by its own standards, ami found seriously warning. 



Bible Harmony. 15 

It does not fill the breach ; it is not equal to the 
exigencies of the case ; it is not adequate to the 
demand ; in doctrine and practice it fails us. Why ? 
How do we account for this sad declension? The 
church has wandered away from the fountain-head, 
from its base of supplies ; it has " wandered out of 
the way of understanding " ; it has, in a measure, 
" rejected the word of the Lord ; and what wisdom is 
there in it?" (Jer. viii. 9). "For my people have 
committed two evils, saith the Lord ; they have for- 
saken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed 
them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no 
water." Here is the cause of the failure, and cause 
enough it is, too ; and until this cause is removed 
failure will continue and increase, and disaster and 
ruin will follow. The church has lapsed from ortho- 
doxy into mere orthodoxism; its traditional belief 
has become a serious stumbling-stone, blocking the 
way of progress and generally demoralizing both 
pulpit and pew. 

Other pernicious effects follow this sad condition 
of things. For instance, what answer has the church 
to-day to such outspoken infidelity as that repre- 
sented by Col. Robert Ingersoll? I do not mean 
what answer has it for theologians, but what answer 
has it for the masses ? not an evasion or a makeshift, 
but an honest, straightforward answer? Is it not 
true that the church has failed to give such answer, 
and is not that tantamount in the eyes of the world 
to a confession of defeat ? And furthermore, is not 
this tacitly admitted defeat strongly confirmed by 



16 Bible Harmony. 

the admissions and concessions of eminent divines of 
high reputation in the church ? Take, for example, 
the recent utterances of R. Heber Newton of New 
York. His series of sermons, recently printed and 
given to the public under the title of " The Right 
and Wrong Use of the Bible," are eminently calcu- 
lated to give encouragement to infidelity and skepti- 
cism inside and outside of the church, and to weaken 
the confidence of many simple-minded Christians in 
the scriptures ; so that, when asked by the blatant 
infidelity of the day, " Do you believe in ' that fish 
story ' of Jonah and the whale ? " they would feel 
inclined to hang their heads in confusion, ashamed 
to answer " Yes," although " that fish story " is fully 
endorsed by our Lord and Saviour. 

Says Mr. Newton, in his sermon on the wrong use 
of the Bible, "Perhaps Elisha's iron axe-head did 
swim upon the water. I am prepared to believe 
almost anything after our spiritualistic mediums, and 
their exposers. Whether it did or did not concerns 
me no whit. I shrug my shoulders and read on. I 
cannot make out the historical fact which was the 
basis of the Red-Sea deliverance ; nor do I care 
much to make out this or any other Old-Testament 
miracle ; if I felt obliged to accept literally these 
stories, or to lose my faith in the voice of God which 
speaks through the men of the Bible, I should care 
greatly ; in the true view of the Bible I am delivered 
from solicitude about these traditions, and am under 
no constraint of credulity. Those who can believe 
the story of Klisha and the bears, or of Elijah's 



Bible Harmony. 17 

ascension into heaven, may ; those who cannot, need 
not; and both alike should reverently read their 
Bibles, not for these tales of wonders, but for the 
still small voice of the eternal spirit sounding through 
holy lives and holier aspirations, until he came whose 
life was the Word of God, the Wonderful." 

What is this, practically, but a complete relinquish- 
ment of the church's position on the scriptures, and 
a full surrender to the enemy ? When, according to 
the above extract, each one believes as much and 
such parts of the Bible as he pleases, then practically 
we have no Bible at all — no divine revelation. Little 
does it signify after publicly uttering, and afterwards 
printing and sending out to the world, such senti- 
ments as the above, that this reverend gentleman, 
under the pressure of ecclesiastical authority, should 
add a footnote to the printed page to the effect that, 
"In what is said above there is no positive denial 
intended of the Old-Testament miracles." The mis- 
chief is done ; after speaking thus flippantly and 
slightingly of Old-Testament miracles as " tales of 
wonder," there is no need of a formal denial of them ; 
they are practically held up to ridicule and contempt, 
with the covert implication that to believe in them 
is childish and absurd. Mr. Newton (as a sop to 
orthodoxism perhaps) may afterwards preach another 
series of sermons especially directed against infidelity 
of the Ingersoll type, and publish them under the 
euphonious title of " Philistinism " ; but it will not 
do ; he has practically surrendered to the genial 
colonel, and the latter may well excuse some little 



18 Bible Harmony. 

" back talk" from one who has so handsomely capitu- 
lated; and yet this reverend gentleman still fills a 
Christian pulpit, and is therefore practically endorsed 
by the Christian church. 

The effect of all this on " the common people " is 
to make them toss their hats and hurrah for Ingersoll, 
at the same time throwing the Bible aside as an 
antiquated volume long since out of date. Mr. New- 
ton is not alone in these concessions and surrenders 
to infidelity ; the so-called " liberal movement " is 
to a very great extent similarly characterized; in all 
departments of Christian activity we find preachers, 
writers, scholars, and professors making similar con- 
cessions, so that on every hand the iconoclasts are 
mutually congratulating one another on the prospect, 
in the near future, of the total subversion and abolish- 
ment of all revealed religion. This is a state of 
things that no one who reveres " the best of books " 
can contemplate without grave anxiety and deep 
concern, and yet they see no way out of it; there 
seems to be no corrective remedy at hand; they, 
themselves, in many cases, are not able to contend 
against modern criticism of the Bible ; the church in 
its leadership seems rather inclined to yield to the 
pressure of skepticism, or else attempts to blink it 
out of sight instead of squarely meeting it face to 
face; and thus, simple, reverent souls are greatly 
perplexed and distressed, while the great mass of 
the church membership are altogether indifferent, or 
complacently satisfied with their own little, narrow, 
ecclesiastical enclosure. The theology of orthodoxism 



Bible Harmony. 19 

is riddled and honeycombed, weak, inadequate, and 
inconsistent, and in some respects (as, for example, 
with reference to the dogma of endless woe) mon- 
strous and absurd. It does not satisfy the truly 
devout, honest, thoughtful soul, though many such 
see no way to escape from its bondage except the}' 
go to the extreme of infidelity and atheism. For 
not only are the various creeds unsatisfactory and 
inconsistent in themselves, but they are mutually 
opposed one to the other. They all claim to be 
based upon the scriptures ; but the defect in them 
all, as it seems to me, is that they do not harmonize 
the scriptures as a whole ; parts of the Bible are 
unduly emphasized, and other parts are either ig- 
nored or explained away ; thus scripture is arrayed 
against scripture, and thereby the whole is weakened. 
The following pages are an effort in the line of 
Scripture Harmony. The writer has undertaken to 
suggest a course of Bible study that will lead to a 
solution of some of the difficulties of scripture inter- 
pretation, and will make harmony of the whole. 
The "Plan of the Ages" (chap, iv.), with all the 
grand and orderly truths connected with it, harmon- 
izes the Bible as a whole, answers many of the great 
religious questions of the day, and reconciles many an 
apparent Bible contradiction. It seems as though 
something of this kind was needed in these days to 
save honest souls from being forced, on the one hand, 
into the position of the bigot and the hypocrite by 
remaining tacitly committed to a creed that they do 
not really believe, and, on the other, from what seems 



20 Bible Harmony. 

to many, in their perplexity and confusion, the only 
alternative, — a total rejection of all beliefs depending 
on revelation, and the acceptance of the methods and 
conclusions of rationalism, pure and simple. For 
such inquiring ones, and with such a purpose, the 
following pages have been written, and are now pre- 
sented to the Christian public, with the hope that 
they may contribute something toward the building 
up of the body of Christ, "till we all come in the 
unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of 
God, unto the Perfect Man, unto the measure of the 
stature of the fulness of Christ." 



CHAPTER I. 

INTERPRETATION. 

Having thus shown in the Introduction the need 
of a new consideration of Bible truth, we proceed next 
to give the reader some idea of the rules of Bible in- 
terpretation adopted in the present volume. But 
first, to open the way for the enunciation of these 
rules, we wish to offer some general remarks in regard 
to the Bible itself. 

THE BIBLE. 

I accept the Bible, as we have it to-day in the orig- 
inal tongue, as the inspired Word of God, containing 
a true revelation of His will, and speaking unto man 
with divine authority. I do not consider, however, 
that the Bible is the only revelation of God that we 
have ; we may, indeed, truthfully say that we have 
Four Bibles — the Book of Nature, the Book 
of Providence, the Written Word, and the Word 
Incarnate. 

Nature surely reveals God. " The heavens declare 
the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his 
handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night 
unto night sheweth knowledge." There is a won- 
derful study of God in the world of nature around 
us. Everything in nature, from the mighty monarch 

21 



22 Bible Harmony. 

of the forest down to the single blade of grass ; from 
the lofty, cloud-capped mountain down to the pebble 
on the seashore.; rock, hill, and dale; the rolling prai- 
rie or the boundless sea; the starry heavens; the 
ocean depths, all speak with one voice, — " The hand 
that made us is divine." " The invisible things of God 
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being 
understood by the things that are made, even his 
eternal power and godhood." 

God's Bible of Providence, the manner of his deal- 
ings with individuals, communities, states, and na- 
tions is full of light in regard to the character and 
will of our Heavenly Father. Take, for example, the 
history of the children of Israel — what a wonderful 
revelation of God is that history! With its lights 
and shadows, its glory and its wretchedness, its special 
favor and its dreadful judgments, its successes and 
its failures — all revealing God in many phases of 
his character, so that by this history we come to 
know God as we never could have known him 
without it. Well might the apostle say in regard to 
this pattern people, this sample of humanity. " Now 
all these things happened unto them for ensamples 
[types]: and they are written for our admonition, 
upon whom the ends of the ages are come" (1 Cor. 
x. 11). But not alone in the history of this ancient 
people does God stand revealed, but in the history of 
all nations, and in tin 1 individual experience of each 
son and daughter of the race; and he that has "eves 
to soo" may trace the divine in the human at every 
step. 



Bible Harmony. 23 

The Written Word is the principal subject of this 
volume, as we shall notice anon ; and the Word In- 
carnate is " the express image of the invisible God," 
and every disciple is to be, in his measure, a likeness 
of the divine — " living epistles known and read of 
all men." These last two revelations we are to study 
in the present work. 

I accept the Bible, as we have it to-day in the 
original tongue, as the inspired Word of God. I 
mean by this the tongue in which it was originally 
spoken or written. The various versions are defec- 
tive in some particulars ; words and phrases have been 
rendered to suit theological notions ; or, by careless- 
ness or ignorance, in such a way as to be misleading, 
and, indeed, in a few instances, false ; hence it is of 
the highest importance that we should consult the 
original, and correct the versions and our own theol- 
ogy thereby. But some one asks, How is one to do 
this who has no knowledge of the original ? I reply, 
there are so many helps to the study of the Bible now, 
that any intelligent person, though he has no knowl- 
edge of any language but his mother tongue, may 
become thoroughly acquainted with all the various 
readings, *and the authority for each; there are inter- 
linear, word-for-word translations, that give, without 
fear or favor, the exact equivalents of the original 
words ; there are concordances so arranged that they 
show infallibly the meaning of the original by com- 
paring t lie various passages where any given word or 
phrase occurs ; there are also various translations that 
are valuable for comparative study, together with 



24 Bible Harmony. 

many similar helps ; and all so arranged that if any 
one is really in earnest, though he may have nothing 
but a common-school education, he may have almost 
as good a chance to know the exact truth, so far as it 
can be ascertained, as the most accomplished scholar. 
There is no need in these days for any intelligent 
person to be ignorant of anything that belongs to 
critical Bible study, if only he is willing to search 
as men search for hid treasure. 

I would add in this connection that even without 
these extra helps that I have mentioned above, with 
nothing in hand but the common English version 
and a good concordance, study and research will put 
one in possession of nearly all that he need to know 
to be thoroughly versed in Bible lore. If one will 
search the scripture for himself, observe the context, 
and compare passage with passage, taking nothing for 
granted, but searching daily to see whether these 
things be so (Acts xvii. 11), he need have no other 
help but the common English version and a concord- 
ance, with the holy spirit, to bring him to a knowledge 
of the "deep things of God." 

But now another question. How do we know but 
that the scriptures as we have them, s;>v in our 
English version (Avhich I think is the best by Ear oi 
all versions), are full of interpolations and spurious 
passages ; or that important parts are lost so as to 
render the whole unreliable and misleading? 

In answer to this question, I reason thai if God 
has given us any written revelation o\' himself at 
all — if we have any Bible whatever — it seems to 



Bible Harmony. 25 

me self-evident that he would care for that revela- 
tion so as to keep it essentially pure and uncontami- 
nated. To suppose that God has given us a written 
revelation of his will, and has wonderfully preserved 
and protected it, as the Bible has been preserved 
and protected, yet that he has allowed that written 
revelation to become essentially defective by omissions 
or interpolations, by fraud or mistake, so that the book 
is unreliable and misleading, — to suppose such a thing, 
I say, is a reflection upon the wise providence of 
God, and upon his almighty power. It is not so 
much a question of human ability or interference as 
it is of the divine power and care. If the Bible is a 
revelation of God, it is God's book ; it makes no dif- 
ference when the various parts were written, or by 
whom, it is the book of God, and he will care for and 
preserve his own ; and this divine providence is plainly 
visible in the history of the Bible, and is in fact a very 
strong evidence of its divine character. But what 
would all this amount to, if the Bible is a mixture 
of true and false, of genuine and counterfeit? for 
we have no test or criterion by which to tell deci- 
sively which is true and which is false, and the 
result would be practically that we should have no 
Bible at all ; or each one would make his own Bible 
according to his own idea and taste. 

Again, I reason for the essential truthfulness of 
the Bible as a whole, because it is a reasonable, 
harmonious book throughout; this proposition re- 
mains to be proved in the body of the book; whether 
I prove it or not, the reader must judge after he has 



26 Bible Harmony. 

thoroughly considered the matter ; but this much will 
be conceded I think at the outset, that if the Bible 
is proved to be reasonable and harmonious through- 
out, it would constitute a very strong evidence of its 
■divine character and of its essential truthfulness. 
Humanly speaking, the Bible is not one book, but a 
collection of books, written by a score or more of 
different authors during a long-extended period of 
some two thousand years. Now if, notwithstanding 
this variety of writers and the protracted period of 
its formation, we still find an essential harmony 
between all its parts, and a vein of sound common 
sense and reason running through the whole, that 
would be a strong evidence that the book was not 
only essentially true, but also of divine authority ; 
for it is hardly possible to believe that so many 
authors, writing at so widely separated periods, with- 
out concert or agreement, should happen to harmon- 
ize with one another, especially when treating upon 
such deep and intricate subjects as those we find in 
the Bible. 

The writer has been led into a .line of Bible 
thought and study that has made beautiful harmony 
of portions of the Bible that once were dark and 
perplexing; now light has shone forth on many of 
these " dark sayings," and the whole Written Word 
lias seemed to shine and glow like the tare of the 
Word Incarnate on the transfiguration mount. Not 
all is clear, for as yet we only "know in part"*: but 
so much is clear and full of grand significance that 
once was dark and practically meaningless, that I 



Bible Harmony. 27 

have a strong desire to start others thinking and 
studying in the same line, in hopes that they will 
be led to new mines of truth, so as to contribute in 
their turn to the general store, that with all saints 
we may be able to comprehend something of the 
breadth and length and depth and height of the 
marvellous love of God. The wonderful Bible har- 
mony that these views bring out is satisfactory evi- 
dence to the writer that they are in the line of truth; 
and he hopes that he will be able to make this 
manifest to some of his readers. I am reminded 
right here, however, that not every one can see the 
truth when it is presented ; they have no eyes. " A 
man can receive nothing except it be given him from 
heaven." " The natural [animal] ■ man receiveth 
not the things of the spirit of God." My feeling 
then is this : If I have any truth to give to God's 
children, those who are " of the truth " will receive 
it, and the rest will see no beauty in it, any more 
than the Jews saw in him who is the truth. There- 
fore I may be " careful for nothing," except to be a 
faithful witness up- to the measure of my light, leav- 
ing it to the Lord to make it a savor of life unto 
life to whom he will. To return now to the sub- 
ject of the Bible. 

I have said that I accepted the Bible, as we have 
it to-day in the original tongue, as the inspired Word 
of God. But some one may ask, "Do you think that 
every word of the Bible is exactly true ; are there no 
discrepancies, contradictions, interpolations, or mis- 
takes ?" I reply that I believe that the Bible is just 



28 Bible Harmony. 

as God would have it. Its inspiration, I think, con- 
sists in this : viz. that God controlled the writers of 
the various parts only so far as to prevent them from 
making any essential mistake or omission, and that, 
aside from such control, they were left to tell their 
own story in their own style and manner, with such 
incidental discrepancies and minor mistakes as might 
creep into any human production. There are many 
things in the scriptures that thus manifest the com- 
mon infirmities of mere human agents, but there is 
nothing of this kind that affects essential truth ; nor 
is anything omitted that is needful for the full eluci- 
dation of such truth. 

Let it be remembered in this connection that 
stumbling-stones are purposely left in the way in 
God's economy, and that "hard sayings," apparent 
contradictions, and discrepancies are a part of the 
discipline and training whereby the " senses " of the 
spiritual man are "exercised," so that he maybe able 
to " discern both good and evil " (Heb. v. 14). It is 
a mistake to suppose, as it is sometimes alleged, that 
God's truth is always clear, plain, and self-evident : 
just the opposite of this is nearer the fact; the truth 
is covered up and obscured so that only he can know- 
it to whom it is revealed. Jesus Christ himself 
is not only a corner-stone, but also a stumbling- 
stone, and so was it intended. "Unto yon which 
believe he is precious ; bu1 unto them which be dis- 
obedient, the stone which (lie builders disallowed, 
the same is made (ho head oi' the corner, and a stone 
of stumbliner, and a rock of offence, even to them 



Bible Harmony. 29 

which stumble cat the Word, being disobedient ; 
whereunto also they were appointed"; and so the 
Written Word, like the Word Incarnate, is to some 
a stone of stumbling and rock of offence. He who 
walks in the light of God will find many of these 
dark places of scripture lighted up and made clear, 
and for the rest he must wait until God shall " make 
all things plain." 

I come now to what seems to me the strongest 
evidence of the essential truthfulness of the Bible, 
viz. its teachings correspond to the actual experience of 
" the life of G-od " in the soul. The Bible sets forth 
two lives, that of u the old man" and of the new; 
" the life of the flesh " and the life of God ; and on 
both of these plains its utterances are true to experi- 
ence. The life of " the animal man " is therein set 
forth, especially in the history of the children of 
Israel; and that same life has been lived over and 
over again from that time to this. We live it ; others 
all around us live it. Over and over again, in every 
generation, in endless repetition, is lived the life of 
Cain, of Canaan, of Ishmael, of Esau, of Achan, of 
Saul, of Ahab, and of all the rest of the examples 
of the animal man. We read these ancient records of 
the doings and sayings of these prominent characters 
and we recognize them true to life. They describe 
not simply men who lived then, but men who live 
now. As we read the account we say, " Yes, I know 
that man; he lives right across the street from me," 
or " the next door " ; or perhaps our conscience 
directs us nearer home, and we say, " That's me" 



30 Bible Harmony. 

Especially in the history of the children of Israel do 
we behold as in a mirror the likeness of "the old 
man." Who has not traced his own experience in 
theirs? Who that has any knowledge of self has 
not seen and been humbled by the sight of his own 
perversity and folly in their waywardness and incon- 
sistency ? What Christian parent, familiar with the 
history of this pattern people, has not seen in his 
own children the same sinful propensities that they 
manifested, and been obliged to deal with them some- 
thing as God dealt with Israel ? 

On the other hand, how plainly the Written Word 
sets forth the spiritual man — his birth, growth, and 
perfection ! In Adam, created in the image and like- 
ness of God, pronounced very good, and given uni- 
versal dominion, we see in mystic prophecy what the 
spiritual man will be when perfected; thus, before 
God begins the work of man's creation, we see the 
prophetical picture of his finished state, as it was in 
the purpose and mind of God. With God the work 
is finished before it is begun ; and so he speaks — of 
things that are not as though they were. In Cain 
and Abel we see the difference between the flesh and 
the spirit. In Noah we see regeneration. In Abra- 
ham appears the way of faith: in Isaac, the condition 
of sonship; in Jacob, that of service ; in Joseph, the 
way of perfection and glory through suffering. In 
Moses Ave see man brought into the closest relations 
to God, so that the divine wisdom and power he- 
comes his. In Joshua and the hook of Judges \\o 
see the spiritual man as the saviour of his follows. 



Bible Harmony. 31 

In David we see the divine idea of conquest, and in 
Solomon the glorious reign of peace. And so on 
with every Bible character. What lives of devotion, 
self-sacrifice, and fearless championship of the truth 
do we behold in the prophets ; their history and 
experience is the same as that of every one who has 
loved the truth, and stood for it, alone perhaps, amid 
a crooked and perverse generation. Isaiah with 
consecrated lips speaks to the heart of every one 
who has " entered into the sanctuary of the Lord," 
as did he (Isa. vi.), words of warning, of comfort, of 
unwavering trust, and of absolute assurance of the 
final triumph of the perfect good. " Thou wilt 
keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord 
Jehovah is everlasting strength." Jeremiah suffers 
and weeps for the sins of his beloved people, and for 
the terrible judgments he sees coming on them, and 
yet no suffering, ignominy, or death shall deter him 
from his mission of warning and denunciation ; for 
the Lord had made him a defenced city, and an iron 
pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land, 
against the kings of Juclah, against the princes 
thereof, againt the priests thereof, and against the 
people of the land (Jer. i. 18). Behold, in him, the 
spirit of every God-armed reformer. The power 
moving him was the truth. The word of God was 
in his heart as a burning fire shut up in his bones, 
and he could not forbear (Jer. xx. 9). "Thy words 
were found and I did eat them," he exclaims, "and 
thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine 



32 Bible Harmony. 

heart." Does not every one whose eyes have been 
open to the truth know something of this experience ? , 
Ezekiel, the mystic of the Old Testament, as John is 
of the New, flashes through the heaven of prophecy, 
telling his marvellous visions of cherubic figures and 
of revolving wheels, of sparkling water, of gorgeous 
temples, and of magnificent cities ; his is a character 
most unique, and yet not entirely unmatched in every 
age, among those who have known something of 
"the deep things of God." How grand and soul- 
inspiring are the qualities manifested in the character 
of Daniel ! Under the most trying circumstances he 
remains true, — proof, by the help of God, against 
all temptation. So with all the rest. Time would 
fail me to speak of them singly. In the histoiy of 
every one we see the struggles and triumphs, the 
failures and successes, of the man of God. Read 
the Psalms. Is there a feeling, a passion, an inspira- 
tion, a longing, a sorrow, a fear, a hope, a joy, — any 
experience of heart or life, inward or outward, thai 
does not in these divine songs find adequate and 
exact expression ? 

I cannot stay to speak of the New Testament par- 
ticularly. It speaks to the heart ; it sets forth a life. 
and therein lies the strongest proof of its divinity. 
First and pre-eminently in the life of Christ, as pre- 
sented to us in the fourfold capacity indicated by 
the gospels: Christ the King, in Matthew; Christ 
the Servant, in Mark; Christ the Man, in Luke; and 
Christ the God, in John. The different stages of 

his life are the same as those of every believer, and 



Bible Harmony. 33 

their destiny is also identical ; for, as we " walk in 
him " here, so shall we finally come to the measure 
of the stature of his fulness, and be one with God 
even as the Father and the Son are one, — perfect 
in one. In the. history of the early church and the 
letters of the apostles we have the same life set forth, 
true to actual experience, whether we regard the 
growth and development of this life in the collective 
body of Christ's disciples, or view it as it unfolds in 
the case of a single individual. It is the same life ; 
and he that hath the life knows the truthfulness of 
the record. 

There is in all this wonderful and deep significance 
of the Word, an evidence that appeals direct to the 
heart of the one who can appreciate it, and leaves 
nothing more to be desired. Though it would not 
weigh a straw as proof to the mind of " the animal 
man," yet to " him that is spiritual " it is perfectly 
satisfactory and decisive. It is not critical evidence, 
nor historical, nor corroborative, like the alleged ful- 
filment of a prophecy ; nor, indeed, is it any evidence 
at all that can be weighed and measured and esti- 
mated by mere human reason ; and yet it is in the 
highest degree satisfactory to him that hath the life. 

It seems to me, indeed, that this is the only deci- 
sive proof of the essential truthfulness of the Written 
Word. Its divinity cannot be unquestionably estab- 
lished in any other way. There is no critical or 
historical argument for the genuineness and authen- 
ticity of the Bible that can be advanced that has not 
its weak points ; these will invariably be discovered, 



34 Bible Harmony. 

and a counter-argument be built up thereon, so that 
still the question will be somewhat in doubt. But 
the evidence that comes from the correspondence of 
the spirit of the Word to " the life of God " in the hu- 
man soul, is perfectly decisive, and, to the one who is 
able to receive it, is absolutely convincing. I will 
illustrate : 

Years ago, a wealthy young man went to sea as a 
common sailor. He was a college graduate, educated 
for the legal profession (which he afterwards prac- 
tised) ; nevertheless, he shipped as a common sailor 
on board of a vessel that was to sail round Cape 
Horn on a trading cruise to the Pacific coast of 
South America, Mexico, and California. He was a 
very capable young man, entered into the sailor's 
life with all his heart, became a thorough seaman, 
wrote an exceedingly interesting book entitled " Two 
Years Before the Mast," also a complete manual of 
practical seamanship, which to this day is an acknowl- 
edged authority in all matters pertaining to the 
sailor's profession. Now, suppose a practical sailor 
should read either one of these books for the first 
time, not knowing by whom it was written, or when, 
or how, or anything concerning it. Nevertheless, he 
would say at once, " The one that wrote that hook 
was a thorough seaman, and the book is essentially 
true." Suppose some one should say to him: ^No 
one knows who wrote that book or when it was 
written. Some think that parts of it were not writ- 
ten by the author claimed, but were interpolated by 
someone else," and SO he should go on after llie 



Bible Harmony. 35 

same manner criticizing and objecting to the book. 
The other would reply: "I care not whether it is 
known who wrote the book or not, or when it was 
written, or whether it was all written by the same 
author or at the same time ; I know the book is trne, 
for I am a sailor myself, and that book exactly 
describes a sailor's life." Such a testimony to the 
truthfulness of the book would settle the question at 
once for all who knew the life set forth. 

So with the Bible. It embodies a life ; it hath a 
spirit ; it breathes and moves before us. It suffers, 
and enjoys, and weeps, and sings, and hopes, and 
fears, and longs with "the man of God." Yea, it 
groivs with him ; it develops, and expands, and 
deepens, and broadens with him ; it is ever beyond 
him ; there is always more to be got out of it ; it is 
never exhausted; the same book, the same chapter, 
the same verse, the same word is manifold-faced, like 
a diamond, and flashes light from every face as it is 
turned again and again ; and ever does its light 
increase, more and more, until the perfect day. God 
has written his book and preserved it for his sons 
and daughters, who have been begotten, not of blood, 
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
but of God, and his seed remaineth in them, and they 
know of the doctrine. They will recognize the life 
in the book because they possess the same ; and the 
book to them is Father's book, because it bears un- 
mistakably the family imprint. Therefore I believe 
the Bible is the Word of God. 



36 Bible Harmony. 

We wish now to offer some suggestions on 

BIBLE INTERPRETATION". 

The following rules have been a great help to me 
in my Bible study, and I am very sure that they will 
be a help to any one in their effort to understand 
"the best of books": 

1. Study the Bible as a whole on any particular 
point. Take into consideration all the evidence. 
There are thousands of varying sects and denomi- 
nations, all claiming to base their faith on the Bible, 
and yet in many cases as opposite to one another as 
black is to white. We have already referred to this 
deplorable condition of things as weakening* and 
almost nullifying the influence of the church. It also 
reflects discredit upon the Bible itself, making it 
appear to be contradictory and inconsistent, and giv- 
ing rise to the very prevalent idea that you can prove 
anything from this much-abused book. 

A wordy skeptical writer has put this popular 
conception as follows : " Nothing is plainer in the 
Bible than that there is nothing plain in the book. 
There is not a heresy, theory, dogma, creed, propo- 
sition, or tenet, however monstrous, however cruel. 
however pernicious, however childish, silly, and ab- 
surd, that may not be substantiated or refuted, driven 
home or kicked out of doors, by reference to that 
marvellous compilation, the Bible." No one can 
deny that there is good reason for this representation. 
When we see Christendom split up into such a vast 
number of sects and denominations, and these snl>- 



Bible Harmony. 37 

divided into minor cliques and clans of various shades 
of religious belief, almost ad infinitum, and almost 
every individual member of these numberless relig- 
ious parties holding different and opposite doctrines 
— and yet every one of them claiming to rest upon 
a Bible foundation — every one of them claiming to 
prove their peculiar views from the scriptures — I say, 
when the great body of nominal Christians through- 
out the world presents such a spectacle of Biblical 
incoherence and discord as this, is it any wonder that 
the honest seeker after truth is perfectly bewildered 
and discouraged, while the caviller and the skeptic 
flippantly dispose of the whole matter as above? 
The trouble is that the Bible as a whole is not con- 
sidered at all ; certain parts of it are relied upon to 
prove a certain doctrine ; set phrases, special proof 
texts, isolated, disconnected passages are brought 
into line to establish each tenet ; while the rest of the 
scriptures are severely let alone : in fact, there are 
large portions of the Bible that are never studied at 
all, rather, I should say, never read; and of these 
portions the great mass of the people, including 
preachers and prominent teachers even, are pro- 
foundly ignorant. This .is the way that almost any 
doctrine can be proved from the Bible : but in no 
such way shall we be able to arrive at the truth, 
i.e. the full, symmetrical, and harmonious truth. Sup- 
pose, for example, that one who reads this present 
volume is more or less interested. It seems grand 
and blessed and like the truth ; and yet he is fearful 
that he may be led into error, and wishes to be sure 



38 Bible Harmony. 

before he commits himself to any new doctrine. Now 
what shall he do ? Let him " search the scriptures " 
thoroughly, from beginning to end, to see if they are 
in harmony with these views ; use all the helps he 
can obtain, and compare one part with another. In 
giving this advice, the writer speaks from experience ; 
when he first came to a knowledge of the glorious 
truths set forth in the " plan of the ages," he felt, as 
indicated above, cautious and somewhat fearful, and 
yet rejoicing in what seemed to be most grand and 
soul-inspiring truth. But before he would commit 
himself to it openly, he began to read the Bible 
through to see if the views harmonized therewith as a 
whole; although he was already very familiar with 
the holy scriptures, and had made it a special study 
for many years, yet in the light of the new-found 
truths the Bible seemed a new book, and as lie 
read, and studied, and pondered, the conviction grew 
stronger and stronger that he was on the track of 
blessed and most important truth. Such an experi- 
ence is eminently satisfactory and reassuring ; no sin- 
cere lover of the truth can engage in such a study 
without being greatly blessed, and well repaid by the 
broader and deeper insight iuto the ways of God that 
will be obtained thereby ; and in no other way can we 
hope to arrive at the truth; if we arc not willing to 
take this trouble, — to pay tins price, or indeed, any 
price for the truth, we are aot worthy of it. 

We might represent the Bible with its manifold, 
multitudinous, and yet perfectly harmonious truths 
as a wonderful and beautiful mosaic. The many 



Bible Harmony. 39 

truths are the pieces of various material, "gold, 
silver, and precious stones," of various shapes and 
colors ; and yet there is one grand and perfect pat- 
tern that these brilliant fragments will make if prop- 
erly put together. In this perfect pattern a place 
will be found into which each piece will perfectly 
fit, and when the pattern is complete it will be found 
that there are no pieces left out, but that it has 
required every piece, the smallest and the most 
unlikely, to complete the perfect figure. Now the 
various sects are like persons who have got hold of 
a few pieces of this wonderful mosaic, and out of 
those pieces have constructed a sort of a figure 
possessing some degree of beauty; for each piece 
alone, each isolated truth, is beautiful in itself, and 
thrown together almost anyhow the whole would be 
more or less beautiful. But these sects have found 
it impossible to make their pieces form the figure 
that they had determined upon, hence they have 
manufactured pieces of various material (" wood, hay, 
and stubble"), to fit the predetermined pattern; and 
multitudes of other genuine pieces that they could not 
work into their pattern they have left lying about, 
utterly ignored and neglected ; these odd pieces — 
" stones of stumbling and rocks of offence," — have 
become after a while so covered up with the dust and 
debris of the creed-makers as to be almost out of 
sight, and thus many of the grandest truths of God 
(like " the restitution of all things," for instance, 
Acts iii. 21) have been entirely overlooked, and to 
a great extent forgotten; while each sect is busy 



40 Bible Harmony. 

making its own little pattern, using some of God's 
truths and some of their own notions — ofttimes more 
of the latter than of the former, — and each one 
claiming that its production is the genuine, origi- 
nally intended figure. But the very fact that there 
are so many different and opposing figures is evidence 
of something radically wrong in them all; and the 
only way that we could be approximately sure of the 
true pattern would be by seeking one that would 
have a place for all the original parts. 

There must be some way to thus harmonize the 
scriptures as a whole. If the Bible is true, if it is of 
divine authority, if it is in any real sense the Word 
of God, it must be harmonious throughout ; one part 
must be in accord with another : and any system of 
theology that does not manifest and emphasize this 
harmony of God's Word, dishonors that Word and can- 
not be true ; whereas, on the other hand, a system 
that rested on the entire body of scripture, that har- 
monized the whole, that had a place for every text 
and doctrine, a place into which every part of scrip- 
ture fell naturally and without forcing, — such a sys- 
tem would be a novelty in the religious world, and 
would be deserving at least of careful consideration 
and study. To the writer, the system of Bible truth 
presented in the present volume almost, if not quite, 
measures up to the above description. It harmonizes 
the Bible as a whole, and upon this fact is based its 
strongest claims upon our confidence. 

2. The next rule o{ Bible interpretation is ex- 
pressed in 2 Tim. ii. 15 — " Rightl] dividing the 
word of truth." 



Bible Harmony. 41 

Truth out of place becomes falsehood ; instead of 
upbuilding it is misleading. In the Bible the grad- 
ual unfolding of truth is dispensational ; portions of 
it belong to the Jewish age, some to the gospel dis- 
pensation, and some to the future millennial era. But 
many Christians, preachers, and teachers quote the 
Bible indiscriminately, Old or New Testament, any 
part of it, as though it all applied now, or to any 
other period they wish, and to whomsoever they may 
please to apply it, without the slightest regard to the 
connection. A little thought must convince one that 
such a use of scripture is very faulty, and liable to 
lead into the gravest errors. For instance, if any one 
should quote commands from the Levitical law (say, 
for instance, to keep the Passover) to a Christian, he 
would reply : " Why, that does not apply to me ; that 
belongs to the Jewish dispensation, and was binding 
upon God's people at that time ; but a Christian is 
under no such command." The propriety of this posi- 
tion would at once be recognized by the great mass 
of Christians ; this would be rightly dividing the 
Word — putting the truth where it belonged — apply- 
ing it scripturally ; and yet as plain and obvious as 
this rule is, it is often grossly violated. For example, 
ministers and others will often quote Isa. xxxv. 8 — 
" An highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall 
be called the way of holiness ; the unclean shall not 
pass over it ; but it shall be for those [a special 
class] : the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err 
therein " — applying this passage to the present time, 
in order to show how plain and easy the way of holi- 



42 Bible Harmony. 

ness is ; an highway, broad and plain, so that the way- 
faring men, though fools, shall not err therein. But 
this passage does not apply to the present age, nor 
in any such way as the foregoing : now " straight is 
the gate and narrow is the way and/ew there be that 
find it " ; it is " through much tribulation that we 
enter into the kingdom of heaven," and even the 
righteous " scarcely are saved." The way of holi- 
ness is not plain and easy now ; it will be in the 
"ages to come," when "the knowledge of the Lord 
shall cover the earth as the water covers the sea, and 
all shall know him from the least to the greatest " ; 
then an highway shall be there, and the wa}^faring 
men, though fools, shall not err therein : but this 
scripture does not apply now, and one need only to 
read the whole chapter to be thoroughly convinced 
of that fact. 

Take another illustration. I have often heard 
Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27 quoted (especially by so-called 
"holiness people"), in order to show what the be- 
liever's privilege is in the present dispensation : lie 
may be cleansed from all his filthiness, have a new 
heart, and the Lord's spirit, and infallibly walk in his 
statutes and judgments ; now without stopping here 
to consider the doctrinal point, I would protest 
against the use of this particular scripture to prove 
any such position; the one who so uses it grossly 
violates the rule we are considering; look at the pas- 
sage and consider the adverb of time by which it is 
introduced — ww Then will I sprinkle clean water upon 
you," etc. When? Is it not worth while to pay 
some attention to the specified time when this scrip- 



Bible Harmony. 43 

fcure applies ? Read the context and see if the pres- 
ent age is indicated as the time when this scripture 
will be fulfilled ; certainly no such condition of 
things as is described in this chapter has yet obtained 
during the present dispensation, so that at least the 
fulfilment of this scripture is in the future. Is it 
rightly dividing the Word to utterly ignore such 
plain indications of time and place, as herein noted ? 
In the same way consider the parable of the ten vir- 
gins in Matt. xxv. 1-13 : in the first place, think of 
the common use and application made of this parable 
by religious writers and speakers, and then consider 
that a particular time is indicated as to when it will 
be fulfilled — " Then shall the kingdom of heaven be 
likened unto ten virgins." He who would rightly 
divide the Word will endeavor to fix the particular 
time wdien it applies, and not apply it anywhere and 
anyhow as is usually done. A knowledge of the 
worlds and ages, and of God's " plan of the ages," is 
needful in order that we may understand these time 
references : these subjects will be considered in their 
proper connection. I have perhaps said enough at 
present to indicate the importance of this rule. 

3. The most important principle of Bible inter- 
pretation is that which was indicated by the Saviour 
when he said, "The words that I speak unto you, 
they are spirit and they are life." Says the apostle, 
" The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life." We have 
an illustration of this latter statement in the context 
to the words of Christ just quoted (John vi.), Christ 
had been telling the people some very strange things, 



44 Bible Harmony. 

among the rest that the bread of life was his flesh, 
which he would give for the life of the world ; then 
he tells them that except they eat his flesh and drink 
his blood they have no life in them. Many of his 
hearers thought these things were "hard sayings," 
and no wonder, and they turned away from him ; 
whereupon, Jesus asks his disciples : "Does this offend 
you? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh 
profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, 
they are spirit and they are life." These words gave 
the disciples a warning that they must look for 
Christ's meaning beneath the letter, and they well 
needed the warning, for truly his words were very 
bewildering; for first he tells them that his flesh is 
the bread of life, which he will give for the life of 
the world, and that they must eat his flesh and drink 
his blood or have no life in them; and then he de- 
clares that the flesh profiteth nothing ; this seems like 
a flat contradiction; no wonder they thought it a 
" hard saying " ; but the secret of it all is that there 
is a spirit to this Word, a hidden meaning, a mystic 
sense; if we see only the letter, i.e. what Jesus said, 
we shall not understand him at all; but if we see the 
spirit of his work, i.e. what he meant, then we shall 
understand him, and his Word will be life unto us. 
The mass of his hearers failed to catch this spirit of 
Christ's words, hence those words wore unto them a 
stumbling-stone and rock of offence, and a "savor of 
death unto death"; seeing only the letter, it was 
death unto them, for it drove them away from him 
who alone; is the world's Life. 



Bible Harmony. 45 

This principle of the spirit of the Word, or a mystic 
sense of scripture, I consider to be of the highest 
importance ; it is the key that unlocks the great 
storehouse of God's revealed truth and fully recon- 
ciles its apparent incongruities and contradictions. 
By a mystic sense to scripture I do not mean a 
fanciful, cabalistic interpretation of every word and 
letter ; I mean simply the scriptural interpretation of 
types, parables, allegories, symbols, etc. In plain 
language, I understand the spirit of the Word to be 
simply the meaning of it — its real true meaning, 
hidden under parable and dark saying, type, shadow, 
pattern, symbol, figure, and allegory — in contradis- 
tinction to the surface-meaning or the letter. 

It is a common idea among Christians that the 
Bible is a very plain and simple book ; so plain and 
easy of comprehension that (as it is often quoted) 
he who runs may read ; the idea is about as correct 
as the quotation ; the truth is just the opposite of 
this idea, and so this quotation should be just the 
opposite way about, "he who reads may run," or 
more exactly, "that he may run that readeth it" 
(Hab. ii. 2). Every student of the Bible knows that 
it abounds with parables, types, and allegories, with 
apparent contradictions and discrepancies, with 
"mysteries," "hidden wisdom," and "dark sayings," 
so that in order to understand "the deep things of 
God" contained therein, one must "search as for hid 
treasure " ; and even then he will not find, unless it 
is given to him to know these mysteries (Matt. xiii. 
11). I do not say, by any means, that there is not a 



46 Bible Harmony. 

surface-meaning, a plain and obvious sense to scrip- 
ture, that even a " babe in Christ " may quickly 
comprehend and assimilate to his spiritual nourish- 
ment ; that is " the sincere milk of the Word " which 
"new-born babes" are to desire, and upon which 
they are to grow. " But strong meat [" the mysteries 
of the kingdom "] belongeth to them that are of full 
age, even them who by reason of use have their 
senses exercised to discern both good and evil" 
(Heb. v. 12-14). 

In further illustration of this principle we will 
study two or three scriptural examples. See the Old- 
Testament story of Abraham and his two wives, 
the bondwoman, and the free woman, and the two 
"seeds," Ishmael and Isaac. Reading the account 
in the Old Testament, we should have no reason to 
suppose that it was anything more than a bit of 
ancient history, illustrating the customs of those 
times and the character of the old patriarch ; but 
Paul, in the fourth chapter of Galatians, gives us the 
spirit of this story; he tells us that these two women 
represent the two covenants, one gendering to bon- 
dage and the other representing the free Jerusalem, 
which is "above," and " the mother of us all": for 
"as we have borne the image of the earthly so shall 
we bear the image of the heavenly." Thus Paul 
gives us the true meaning or spirit of the Old-Testa- 
ment story ; he tells us that the story is an ik allegory " ; 
this word exactly expresses the idea of the spirit of 
the word, for it means in the original as well as in 
the English (the English is only the Greek word 



Bible Harmony. 47 

anglicized) having another meaning. The noun comes 
from a verb that means to speak so as to imply some- 
thing other than what is said. The use of this word 
is very significant ; it exactly expresses the difference 
between the letter and the spirit ; the letter is what 
the Bible says ; the spirit is what it means. There 
is a hidden meaning in scripture, a " mystic sense " ; 
it means " something other than what is said." This 
is plainly implied in the use of this word " allegory." 
It may appear to some as rather dangerous doc- 
trine to teach that the scriptures do not mean what 
they say ; this idea may seem to throw discredit 
upon the Word, and to open the flood-gates to con- 
jecture, speculation, and fancy. These considera- 
tions, however, do not disturb the writer of these 
pages, and for two reasons. First, there is a great 
mass of scriptural testimony, overwhelmingly con- 
vincing, to the effect that the Bible does have such 
a mystic sense — a spirit, a hidden meaning ; this 
point we think we have abundantly substantiated in 
the following pages. The second reason is that the 
power to recognize and appreciate this peculiarity of 
the Bible is a special gift from God ; hence it is not 
proof of the fact that is needed in order to convince 
one that it is a fact, but eyes to see. This point is 
fully established by reference to the second chapter 
of First Corinthians. Read the whole chapter, and 
see how plainly the apostle makes this out. He says : 
" Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are per- 
fect [i.e. mature'] : yet not the wisdom of this world, 
nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught : 



48 Bible Harmony. 

but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even 
the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the 
world unto our glory which none of the princes of 
this world knew : for had they known it, they would 
not have crucified the Lord of Glory [mark this state- 
ment]. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man 
[i.e., the animal man, verse 14], the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him. But 
God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit : for 
the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 
of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of 
the world, but the spirit which is of God ; that we 
might know the things that are freely given to us 
of God. Which things also we speak, not in the 
words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the 
holy spirit teacheth, interpreting spiritual things to 
spiritual men. But the natural man receiveth not 
the things of the spirit of God : for they are foolish- 
ness unto him : neither can he know them, because 
they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spirit- 
ual discerneth all things, yet he himself is discerned 
of no man." 

The above scripture is very full and plain upon 
this subject. The apostle tells us that there is a 
wisdom — the hidden wisdom of God — that the 
great and high of this world know nothing about : 
and though the more animal man hath not seen OT 
heard, neither can he form any conception oi the 

things that God hath promised to them that love 
him, yet these very things, i>ven the deep things o( 



Bible Harmony. 49 

God, are revealed unto the spiritual by his spirit; 
thus, having received the spirit of God, we thereby 
know the things that are freely given us of him ; 
which things also we speak, in the words that the 
holy spirit teacheth, interpreting spiritual things to 
spiritual men ; that this is the true meaning of the 
last clause of this verse (13th) is plain from the 
change in the gender of the two words rendered 
"spiritual"; the first "spiritual" is neuter gender, the 
second one is masculine, thus plainly indicating 
the meaning as rendered in the margin of the new 
version, and setting forth the truth that spiritual 
things can only be understood by those " that are 
spiritual," i.e. those that have the spirit, or spiritual 
discernment ; for the natural man receiveth not the 
things of the spirit of God; he not only cannot 
understand them, but they seem foolishness to him ; 
he cannot know them, because he has no spirit- 
ual discernment, just as a blind man cannot see, 
simply because he is destitute of the sense of sight. 
But he that is spiritual discerns (understands ; com- 
pare 1 John ii. 20) all things ; but he himself is 
discerned (understood) by no one. Here is the 
whole great truth that no one can understand the 
deep things of God without spiritual discernment ; 
it is a sixth sense, the spiritual sense ; and it would 
be just as useless to try and make any one under- 
stand spiritual things without the spiritual sense, as 
it would be to attempt to make a person see who 
had not the sense of sight. You can only interpret 
spiritual things to spiritual men. This spiritual 



50 Bible Harmon?/. 

sense is the gift of God ; it is the wisdom that the 
holy spirit teacheth, that thereby we might know 
the things that are freely given to us of God. Jesus 
makes this thought still more positive in his state- 
ment to his disciples recorded in Matt. xiii. 11. " It 
is given unto you to know the mysteries of the king- 
dom of heaven, but to them it is not given"; lan- 
guage could not be plainer ; there is a mystic sense 
to scripture, a hidden wisdom; and to some it is 
given to understand it, and to some it is not given ; 
the reason for this we shall learn when we come to 
consider " the plan of the ages " ; the fact surely is 
plain from the scripture quoted. 

Another very singular illustration may be found 
in connection with the same allegory that we have 
been considering. In the last verse of Gal. iv. 
the apostle says : " Nevertheless what saith the scrip- 
ture ? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for 
the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with 
the son of the freewoman." Where is this "scrip- 
ture?" Why, this is the petulant and apparently 
cruel speech of Sarah to her husband, Abraham, in 
regard to the bondwoman Hagar. Who would have 
supposed that there was a spirit even to this harsh 
and offensive utterance? and yet there was, as Paul 
shows us. This was a type, like the whole history 
of the children of Israel. (Compare 1 Cor. x. t>, 11.) 
Sarah casting out the bondwoman and her son ("born 
after the flesh ") typifies the casting out o( the flesh, 
the crucifying of the flesh, with its affections and 
lusts, the putting off of the old man, that the now 



Bible Harmony. 51 

man ("born after the spirit ") might have no rival in 
the "purchased possession." In view of this illus- 
tration, so strange and unexpected, one might well 
join in the sentiment of a certain religious writer 
upon this same subject of the spiritual sense of scrip- 
ture, to the effect that while he would not say that 
every passage of scripture, and every sentence, had 
a mystic sense, yet he would not dare to put his fin- 
ger upon any one word of holy writ and say, " This 
has not a mystic sense." Surely " the manifold wis- 
dom of God " and " the unsearchable riches of Christ 
are strangely bound up and hidden away in the nar- 
rative, history, poetry, and prophecy of the Written 
Word, just as all " the treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
edge " were hid in the Word Incarnate, and only he 
can unlock these treasures to whom it is given. 



CHAPTER IL 

"ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD." 

There is no statement in the Bible that is more re- 
markable and even startling than this — " All things 
are of God" (2 Cor. v. 18). When yon think of 
it seriously it seems as though Paul was rather un- 
guarded and careless in his language ; it would seem 
as though he ought to have modified and limited his 
statement somewhat, say, for instance, all good things 
are of God. But no, the apostle makes the sweeping, 
unqualified statement — " All things are of [literally, 
out of] God " ; and so important did he consider this 
great truth that he repeats it no less than seven dis- 
tinct times. (See Rom. xi. 36 ; 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; xi. 12; 
2 Cor. v. 18 ; Eph. i. 11 ; iv. 6 ; Heb. ii. 10.) 1 Now 
was the apostle careless and a little too bold in these 
utterances, or did he mean just what lie said, and are 
they true absolutely? I say unhesitatingly yes to 
the two latter questions. The more we learn of 
God's works and ways, the more we shall understand 
that in a sense absolutely all things are of God, or, 
as some put it, God is in everything. This is the 
doctrine of God's universal, all-pervading, ever-eon- 

1 Christ confirms these statements in John xvii. 7, compared with 
Matt, xi. 27. 



Bible Harmon [f. 53 

stant providence. " His tender mercies are over all 
his works." " He worketh all things after the counsel 
of his own will." 

This doctrine of God's providence is a most posi- 
tive and important one ; there is no doctrine of 
scripture that is more plainly supported by the most 
emphatic statements repeated over and over again, as 
referred to above ; and no Christian would think of 
doubting it, were it not for the fact that its full ac- 
ceptance leads to some very startling and, to some, 
even shocking conclusions. u What ! " they say, " all 
things are of God? absolutely all things? the bad things 
as well as the good ? all the crime, and sin, and wicked- 
ness ? surely it is blasphemous to say that such things 
are of God. Paul never could have meant that we 
should take him absolutely; we must use our own 
judgment and reason in such matters, and correct 
these sweeping statements, for it cannot mean that 
absolutely all things are of God." And yet that is 
the way the apostle puts it, over and over again. 
Was he ignorant and careless ? No, he was neither ; 
he was right, and the scriptures, and experience and 
observation fully bear him out in his statements, as 
strange and startling as they may seem. Let us look 
at this subject carefully, and see if it is not literally 
true that all things are of God. 

We will notice some general statements of scripture 
first. Says Christ, "Are not five sparrows sold for 
two farthings ? and not one of them is forgotten be- 
fore God." Just ponder this statement a moment — 
not one of them is forgotten before God; and of 



54 Bible Harmony. 

course it is not sparrows alone that God cares for, 
but all his creatures; not one of them is forgotten; 
and the Saviour adds, " The very hairs of your head 
are numbered." This is not mere hyperbole, but it 
represents a literal fact ; not that one's hairs are lit- 
erally counted ; I do not know of any advantage 
that would be, but it means that God's providence is 
over his creatures to such an extent, in its minuteness 
and particularity, as almost to seem absurd. The great 
men of the earth manifest their greatness by their close 
attention to so-called great things ; the affairs of state, 
national interests, business ventures involving mil- 
lions, vast philanthropic schemes, and such like mat- 
ters of world-wide importance ; these men generally 
have very little care and pay very little attention to 
the common every-day affairs of life. But God, be- 
tween whom and the greatest of all earth's great 
ones there is an infinite disparity, displays his great- 
ness by caring for what would seem to be the most 
trivial interests of his creatures, like the numbering 
of the hairs of their heads, and taking notice of ap- 
parently the most unimportant events, like the falling 
of a single sparrow. Well may we exclaim with 
Faber in view of such greatness, — 

" O God ! thy loving greatness ever lies 
Outside us like a boundless sea ; 
We cannot lose ourselves where all is home, 
Nor drift away from thee. 

Thus doth thy grandeur make us grand ourselyi - j 
Thy goodness quells our fear; 
Thy greatness makes us brave as children are 
When those (hey love are near." 



Bible Harmony. 55 

If you would see this thought of God's universal 
providence carried out in every detail read the four 
consecutive Psalms, beginning with the 104th. These 
four Psalms contain this doctrine in all its fulness. 
Read also Psalm 147th and especially the 139th. 
This latter Psalm is a perfect gem of providence — a 
marvellous setting forth of the minuteness of God's 
care. 

Most Christians will accept the above (theoreti- 
cally at least), but what will stagger them is the idea 
of evil things being "of God." They are very 
willing to acknowledge that all good things are of 
God, but bad things are of the devil, or of wicked 
men ; and thus they divide God's universe into two 
realms, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of 
darkness, and place rival gods over each; this is 
practically the faith of the greater part of Christians ; 
and yet this idea is chaotic and antichristian, and 
tends directly to atheism, as I think I shall show 
before we get through this chapter. Paul says " All 
things are of God." " He worketh all things after 
the counsel of his own will." All things include 
evil things, and we shall find that these are of God, 
as well as those things that we call good. 

Take the case of Joseph as an illustration of how 
evil things are of God. His unnatural brethren 
determined to kill him (Gen. xxxvii.). Being dis- 
suaded from this they sell him to the Ishmaelites, 
thus bringing upon him a cruel servitude, and upon 
their aged father a heart-breaking agony. A blacker 
or more wicked deed could scarcely be imagined; 



56 Bible Harmony. 

and yet in the sequel of the story, when Joseph is 
made ruler of Egypt, and his brethren coming down 
to buy corn at last discover that he is their long-lost 
brother, whom they had so cruelly wronged, he 
reassures and comforts them by saying : " Now there- 
fore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that 
ye sold me hither, for Gf-od did send me before you 
to preserve life. So now it was not you that sent me 
hither, but Crod" Could we have a more striking 
and positive illustration of how " all things are of 
God " ? He is in everything, even in the crimes and 
cruelties of man. Take another illustration not so 
prominent in the Bible, but just as positive. (See 
Judges xiv. 1-4.) Samson becomes enamored of a 
Philistine woman and must have her for his wife. 
In vain his parents try to dissuade him from so im- 
proper an alliance as it would seem ; Samson is com- 
pletely bewitched and insists upon having her. Who 
would suppose that God had anything particular to 
do with this apparently foolish love affair? and yet 
it was of him. For the fourth verse reads, " Bui his 
father and his mother knew not that it was of the 
ion?, that he sought an occasion against the Philis- 
tines." (For another illustration see 2 Chron. x. 15 : 
xi. 4.) 

Another very striking example of how evil tilings 
are of God, is brought out in the case o( the priestly 
house of Eli. (Read 1 Sam. ii. 25, 30-33.) Now see 
how the fulfilment of tins prediction was brought 
about in 1 Sam. wii. 18-20. A more cold-blooded, 
barbarous butchery was never perpetrated, and jei 



Bible Harmony. 57 

it was the carrying out of the purpose of God. In 
1 Sam. ii. 31, God says, "2* will cut off thy father's 
house." According to the account in chapter twenty- 
two it was Doeg that did the awful deed, and yet it 
is plain to see how God was in it. Abiathar escaped 
the massacre ; the denunciation was against the entire 
house of Eli. Abiathar must be banished from the 
priesthood. See how it was done in 1 Kings ii. 
26, 27. " So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from 
being priest unto the Lord ; to fulfil the word of the 
Lord which he spake concerning the house of Eli in 
Shiloh." Is not this a very plain illustration of the 
great truth we are considering? The awful deeds 
of wicked men are " of God " in such a sense that 
he makes them conducive to the carrying out of his 
own plans, and brings good out of them in the end. 
" Surely the wrath of man shall praise him ; the 
remainder of wrath [that which he cannot turn to 
his praise] will he restrain." " All are his servants " 
(Psa. cxix. 91). "Fire and hail, snow and vapor, 
and stormy wind fulfil his word" (Psa. cxlviii. 8). 

The heathen king Cyrus is another illustration of 
this truth. (See Isa. xlv. 1-7.) Cyrus was God's 
" annointed " to do his work. God used him as an 
instrument to accomplish a certain purpose, though 
Cyrus knew not that he was thus being used of God. 
The case of the Assyrians is still more marked. God 
was using them just as the carpenter uses his tools. 
(See Isa. x. 1-19, especially verse 15 ; and in the 
same connection see Jer. Ii. 19-24.) 

Again, see Josh. xi. 15-20. Israel destroyed the 



58 Bible Harmony. 

Canaanites, and made peace with none of them ex- 
cept the Gibeonites, " For it was of the Lord to 
harden their hearts, that they should come against 
Israel in battle that he might destroy them utterly." 
See, also, a very remarkable illustration in Psa. cv. 25. 
God sent his people down into Egypt, having sent 
Joseph before them (verse 17 ; this verse confirms 
Joseph's own statement that God, and not his 
wicked brethren, sent him) to prepare the way for 
them. God increased his people and made them 
stronger than their enemies (verse 24), and now 
mark: "He turned their heart to hate his people, to 
deal deceitfully with his servants." What ! did God 
incline the hearts of the Egyptians to hate his own 
people, to deal deceitfully with his own servants? 
So the record reads ; and this record is confirmed by 
the declarative question of the prophet in Isa. xlii. 
2-i : " Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the 
robbers ? Did not the Lord ? " Truly, all things are 
of God. 

Take still another illustration from the New Tes- 
tament. The crucifixion of Christ is always looked 
upon as the most awful crime that ever was com- 
mitted, and the perpetrators of it are considered as 
deserving the most severe retribution: and yet they 
simply did what God's hand and counsel deter- 
mined before to be done (Acts iv. 28), and Peter 
tells us that Christ was "delivered up by the deter- 
minate counsel and foreknowledge of God." Look 
also at Rev. xvii. 17, and see how wicked nations do 
God's will. Thus we see thai even this stupendous 



Bible Harmony. 59 

crime was "of God," and since we know that he 
" worketh all things after the counsel of his own 
will," we can readily see from the illustrations cited 
how true it is that " all things are of God," even all 
evil things. 

The Bible is full of this doctrine ; any one who 
will read the book with this thought in mind will 
be surprised and startled by the frequency and dis- 
tinctness with which this doctrine is brought out. 
For example, did the reader ever notice in reading 
the prophets the use of the first personal pronoun I, 
used in reference to God? Jehovah says, by the 
mouth of his prophets, I have done so and so, and 
thus and thus, when those very things, according to 
the history, seem to have been the sole work of 
wicked and godless men, and yet the Lord says, I 
did it. If the reader has not thought of this before, 
let him take his Bible and begin with the fortieth 
chapter of Isaiah and read through the forty-eighth, 
especially noticing the first personal pronoun refer- 
ring to God, that thus he may know what God doeth ; 
and let him mark the culmination of these startling 
scriptures in chapter forty-five, seventh verse : " I 
form the light, and create darkness ; I make peace 
and create evil ; I, the Lord, do all these things." 
We shall consider this scripture again further on ; I 
refer to it now simply to show the responsibility that 
God takes upon himself. Puny theologians need no 
longer discuss the " origin of evil," or try to show by 
wordy and obscure argument, how a perfectly pure 
and sinless creature, with not a particle of evil in all 



60 Bible Harmony, 

God's universe, might yet become intensely evil, and 
God not be in any degree responsible therefor. If 
we would accept the Word of God, all this vain talk 
would be silenced ; for thus saith Jehovah : " Who is 
this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowl- 
edge ? " " 1 form the light, and create darkness ; I 
make peace and create evil ; I, the Lord, do all these 
things." Let us accept the word, strange and start- 
ling though it be, and let us endeavor, not to find 
some other explanation of the fact of evil, but to 
learn, if we may, the purpose of that fact. 

In the present chapter we will content ourselves 
with simply making out this one point, that all things 
are of God ; or rather we would call the attention of 
the reader to how the Bible sets forth this great 
truth of God's universal providence. We have pre- 
sented sufficient scripture to fully prove that God's 
providence (which is only another name for God 
himself) is omnipresent and all-pervading; that ab- 
solutely nothing takes place but God's hand is in it, 
controlling, directing, overruling, so that his own will 
is accomplished. " He worketh all things after the 
counsel of his own will." We shall elaborate this 
thought more and more as we proceed ; but I would 
have the reader here at the outset be thoroughly con- 
vinced of its truth; and do not let any thought of 
the consequences of such a belief shake your faith ; 
do not say to yourself: "Why, it cannot be! God 
absolutely in all tilings? Impossible! Do you tell 
me that God is in all the wickedness, and wrong, ami 
outrage, and injustice, and cruelty, and crime ? that 



Bible Harmony. 61 

all these things are in any sense ; of God ' ? Such a 
thought were blasphemy. I cannot believe it." But 
what then will you do with the scripture quoted 
above ? what will you do with the Bible illustrations 
given of how God is in evil things ? and, furthermore, 
what will you do with evil itself? that great, black, 
towering burden laid on to humanity, and cursing 
God's fair creation? I do not speak of its origin, but 
of the fact of its existence. Will you make it an entity 
distinct from and independent of God? You must 
do this, or else you must make God its master ; and 
if he is its master, then of course he controls and 
directs it and makes it subservient to his own ends. 
Consider for a moment the consequences of the oppo- 
site view. If God is not in all things — if he does 
not work all things after the counsel of his own will 
— if all things are not of God — if some things take 
place in which he has no hand, over which he has no 
controlling power — entirely independent of him, un- 
known to him or beyond his reach, then what a chaos 
of uncertainty is opened before us ! What dread- 
ful things of this kind have happened in the past ! 
What awful things may happen in the time to come ! 
If there is a power of evil that can act independent 
of God, in spite of him, or unknown to him, then 
this power, call it what you please, is a rival god, 
and it may entirely upset God's government some- 
time ; how could we be sure that it would not? Ac- 
cording to the popular belief this evil power lias 
already done that very thing. God made all things 
" very good " in the beginning, and this evil power 



62 • Bible Harmony. 

steps in and makes almost everything very bad ; and 
the " plan of redemption," as it is usually called, is a 
" scheme " to repair damages ; if such a calamity has 
occurred once, contrary to CrocVs will, how can we be 
sure that it will not occur again ? Furthermore, how 
can we be resigned to the ills and woes of life if all 
things are not of God? Surely there is no virtue in 
being patient under trials that are entirely the work 
of the devil, and in which God has no part or share 
whatever. But if, on the other hand, God is in all 
things, if nothing happens except by his appoint- 
ment or permission, then we may well be resigned, 
for we may be sure that he will allow nothing to take 
place that he cannot in the end somehow overrule 
for good. " He causes the wrath of man to praise 
him, and the remainder he restrains." Paul tells us 
in Rom. viii. 20, that it was God himself that made 
the creation subject to vanity, this fallen state ; that 
is to say, the so-called " fall of man " was " of God " ; 
and we have a perfect illustration of how God per- 
mits evil (and is, therefore, in some sense responsi- 
ble for it) in the case of Job ; it is worthy of note in 
the case of the old patriarch, that although Satan Avas 
the immediate agent of his afflictions and dreadful 
calamities, yet he is never recognized as such at all : 
but Job attributes all his troubles to God, saying, 
"Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and 
shall we not receive evil? " The evil as well as the 
good was "at the hand of the Lord." Was Job 
guilty of blasphemy in thus ascribing evil to God? 
Certainly not; God is the creator o( evil, and it is 



Bible Harmony. 63 

his servant, as are all things, and his will is accom- 
plished thereby in the end, for " His kingdom ruleth 
over all." The prophet Amos implies even a more 
startling statement than the utterance of Job, when 
he asks, " Shall there be evil in the city, and the 
Lord hath not done it ? " 

We shall notice again all these scriptures in regard 
to this intensely interesting subject of the problem of 
evil : I refer briefly to them now in order that the 
reader may be fully established in the truth that 
all things are of God, the evil things as well as the 
good. Thus we may know that God is supreme ; " He 
worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." 
He is absolutely the first great cause ; absolutely all 
things are of him ; we may abide under the shadow 
of that great truth in perfect safety; let nothing 
cheat us out of it ; do not exalt the devil so high, 
or wicked men, or any evil power, as to suppose that 
either one, or all of them combined, can act inde- 
pendent of God. What force would there have been 
in Job's utterance had he said, " Shall we receive 
good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not 
receive evil at the hand of the devil ? " There would 
be no reason why we should receive evil at the hand 
of the devil without murmur or complaint, simply 
because we receive good from the hand of God; 
but if both are of God, then we may be resigned to 
both, since we are sure that he would permit nothing 
that is not right and good in the end. 

Let the trusting child of God then take this great 
truth home to his heart — "All thiners are of God"; 



64 Bible Harmony. 

this is for his comfort and support amid all the 
changes and vicissitudes of life. My God and my 
Father is in all things. I am content, let come what 
will. " For of Him [as the source], and through Him 
[as the means], and to Him [as the end] are all 
things : to whom be glory for the ages. Amen " 
(Rom, xi. 36). 



CHAPTER III. 

THE WORLDS AND THE AGES. 

In the last chapter we have learned that God is 
the great architect of the universe. He buildeth, 
and none can hinder, neither has any other being 
the power to lay one stone upon another without 
his high behest. " The Lord of hosts hath sworn, 
saying, surely as I have thought, so shall it come to 
pass ; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand : for 
the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall dis- 
annul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who 
shall turn it back?" (Isa. xiv. 24-27). "The Most 
High liveth forever ; whose dominion is an everlast- 
ing dominion, and his kingdom is from generation 
to generation ; and all the inhabitants of the earth 
are reputed as nothing ; and he cloeth according to 
his will in the army of heaven, and among the in- 
habitants of the earth ; and none can stay his hand, 
or say unto him, what doest thou?" (Dan. iv. 34, 
35). That is to say, " He worketh all things after the 
counsel of his own will." 

Thus we see that God takes the whole responsi- 
bility. "It is God that worketh in you both to 
will and to do, of his good pleasure." We must 
first look at this question of Bible harmony from 
God's standpoint ; the great question is, " What has 

05 



66 Bible Harmony. 

G-od wrought ? " After we have learned something 
on this side of the question we will turn to man's 
side and consider that other important but subordi- 
nate question, " What is man ? " 

In the present chapter we are to consider the 
framework of the worlds and the ages, upon which 
God lays out his bright designs and works his 
sovereign will. 

THE WORLDS. 

We find in the scripture that time, as it relates to 
this world, is divided up into worlds and ages ; a 
world is the longer period and may include several 
ages ; and each world includes a distinct heaven and 
earth, which terms are used figuratively, referring 
respectively to the ruling element and the subjects 
ruled over in any particular world. In the third 
chapter of the second epistle of Peter three such 
worlds are set forth, and each world is composed of 
a distinct heaven and earth. Let us study the mean- 
ing of these terms. Of course we all know the 
ordinary meaning of the words world, heaven, and 
earth ; but are these words used here in their ordinary 
sense? I think that a careful reading of the whole 
chapter, both in the old and new version, fcexl and 
margin, will at least suggest the thought that there 
is a meaning to this chapter that does not appear 
upon the surface, especially so when we read in 
the latter part of the chapter Peter's reference to the 
writings of "our beloved brother Paul" upon the 
same subjects; in which writings Peter savs there 



Bible Harmony. 67 

are " some things hard to be understood, which they 
that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do 
also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." 

Here certainly is more than a hint that in the 
writings on " these things " there are " some things 
hard to be understood," requiring learning to fathom 
and comprehend ; not book learning, " not the 
wisdom of this world," but the wisdom " which the 
holy spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual things with 
spiritual." We therefore expect to find a deeper 
significance to this scripture than appears on the 
surface. If the terms were to be taken in their most 
obvious and ordinary sense, there would be nothing 
hard to be understood by any person, learned or 
unlearned. But we are to be on our guard here lest 
we wrest this scripture to our own destruction. Let 
us seek, then, for the meaning as men seek for hid 
treasure. 

In verses five and six the apostle first speaks of the 
world that was before the flood as consisting of a 
heavens and earth, and he tells us that that world, 
"being overflowed with water, perished." The orig- 
inal word rendered world is cosmos, a word that 
has been incorporated into the English language and 
that may be found in any English dictionary ; there 
need be no mystery, therefore, about this word. It 
will be found that it means order, harmony, arrange- 
ment, and is opposed to the word chaos, which means 
without order, harmony, or system ; the word cosmos 
means about the same as the French word regime, 
which may also be found in our English dictionaries 



68 Bible Harmony. 

as indicating a mode, style, system, administration, 
a certain arrangement or order of things, — this is a 
cosmos or world. 

In the Bible we find the word frequently used in 
this sense. For example, Christ says to the Jews, 
" Ye are of this world ; I am not of this world " ; that 
is to say, Ye are of this system, this order of things ; 
I am of an order yet to come. Satan is " the prince 
of this world " ; it is an unrighteous, iniquitous con- 
dition of things, — "this present evil world." On 
the other hand, Christ says, " My kingdom is not of 
this world," — not of this order of things. So Christ 
says to his disciples, " Ye are not of the world, even 
as I am not of the world " ; this the apostle explains 
in Rom. xiii. 11-14 and 1 Thess. v. 4-8. Paul also 
speaks of " the fashion of this world," " the course of 
this world," the " beggarly elements," and the " rudi- 
ments " of this World. All this plainly indicates the 
meaning of the word as already intimated above. 

We also find the word used in the sense of "man- 
kind," as when it says, " Behold the Lamb of God 
that take th away the sin of the world"; "God was 
in Christ reconciling the world unto himself " : M The 
bread of God is he who cometli down from heaven 
and giveth life unto the world." In such passages 
as these it is plain to be seen that the term world 
means the race, mankind. In these two senses is the 
term cosmos used in the New Testament. 

Now in this third chapter of Second Peter there 
are three worlds spoken of, each world consisting of 
a distinct heavens and earth. The heavens ami earth 



Bible Harmony. 69 

which were " of old standing out of the water and in 
the water," constituting "the world that then was, 
being overflowed with water, perished" ; this was the 
"old world " (2 Pet. ii. 5). Then comes "the heavens 
and the earth which are now " constituting " this 
world " that Christ and the apostles speak of, as 
noted above. "This world," — this present iniqui- 
tous system of things of which Satan is the prince, 
"the ruler of the darkness of this world," — this will 
be destroyed by fire at the " day of judgment," and 
will thus " pass away," and be succeeded by " a new 
heavens and new earth," constituting a new world, 
or order of things, "wherein dwelleth righteous- 
ness." This future world is the one to which Christ 
and his people belong, and which will witness the 
establishment of his kingdom, as intimated in the 
scripture quoted above : " I am not of this world " ; 
" My kingdom is not of this world " ; " Ye are not of 
this world, but I have chosen you out of the world." 
Then shall "the kingdom [dominion] of this world 
become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ" 
(Rev. xi. 15). 

These are the three worlds of scripture. The three 
worlds of the popular theology are heaven, earth, 
and hell, but none of these are ever called a world in 
the Bible ; the above are the only worlds spoken of, 
and these come in the order named. No two of them 
are contemporaneous, and each of them, as we have 
seen, is made up of a distinct heavens and earth. 

In their symbolic usage a heavens and an earth 
refer to the ruling element and those ruled over in 



70 Bible Harmony. 

any particular world, or, in other words, the govern- 
ment and the people. For example, the Lord says, 
" The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my foot- 
stool," i.e. heaven represents the ruling element, the 
throne ; the earth represents the element ruled over, 
under subjection, the footstool. To the same effect 
see Dan. iv. 11, 22, 26, and Heb. vii. 26 ; and on the 
word earth, see Mic. i. 2 and Psa. xcvi. Says the 
prophet, " The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the 
world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty peo- 
ple of the earth do languish ; the earth also is defiled 
under the inhabitants thereof; . . . therefore hath 
the curse devoured the earth," etc. (Isa. xxiv. 4-6). 
It will be seen in this passage that the words earth, 
people, and inhabitants are used interchangeably ; this 
shows the figurative meaning of the word earth, and 
thus we can understand why each world is spoken of 
as including a heavens and an earth. Each world 
exhibits some particular form of rule (the heavens), 
and the effects of that rule on the masses (the earth). 
In the "old world," before the flood, "the sons of 
God" (Gen. vi. 2) were the ruling class, the heavens 
of that cosmos. They themselves degenerated, and 
under their rule "the earth became corrupt before 
God, and the earth was filled with violence : for all 
flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth." The 
earth and all flesh mean one and the same, the masses 
of the people ruled over, — "that world, being over- 
flowed with water, perished." Each one can see thai 
in the destruction of bhe "old world" it was not the 
material earth that perished, but mankind, together 



Bible Harmony. 71 

with the system of things that then obtained. " This 
world " will also pass away, and be succeeded by a 
new world, made up of "a new heavens and new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." From this 
latter passage especially, it can be seen that by a 
new heavens and earth is not meant a new planet, 
but a new system or order of things, as described, 
for example, in Psa. lxxxv. " Truth shall spring 
out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down 
from heaven; and the Lord shall give that which 
is good [evil will be restrained, Rev. xx. 3], and 
our land shall yield her increase, and righteous- 
ness shall go before him, and shall set us in the way 
of his steps." It is very plain that this language 
describes a heavens and earth wherein dwelleth 
righteousness, and the meaning is plain. Not a ma- 
terial heavens and earth, not a new planet and a 
new atmosphere surrounding it, or a new firmament 
above it, — this is not what is meant, — but a new 
system (all things made new, Rev. xxi. 5) in both 
the ruling powers and the condition of the world, 
for Christ shall rule, "the Lord our Righteousness," 
and the earth shall be filled with the knowledge 
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea ; and every 
man shall sit under his own vine and fig-tree, with 
none to molest or make him afraid. 

In the present world, from the flood to the second 
advent, we still have an evil heavens and earth; 
Satan is the prince of this world (John xiv. 30) ; 
under him are the " wicked spirits in the heavenlies " 
(Eph. vi. 12, margin) ; i.e. in the place of authority and 



72 Bible Harmony 

power (see also Eph. ii. 2 ; 1 Pet, v. 8) ; under these 
" rulers of darkness " are the corrupt, wicked, and 
godless governments of the world; so oppressive, 
tyrannical, and cruel that they are represented in the 
Bible by savage beasts (Dan. vii. 1-7). This is the 
present heavens. What is the present earth ? What 
else could it be under such a heavens but just what it 
is, — a scene of discord, strife, misery, corruption, and 
death ? — a chaos of disorder and ruin ? " The earth 
mourneth and facleth away; the world languisheth 
and fadeth away ; the haughty people of the earth do 
languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhab- 
itants thereof; because they have transgressed the 
laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting 
covenant; therefore hath the curse devoured the 
earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate " 
(Isa. xxiv. 4-6). How fitly does this language ex- 
press the state of affairs in this earth ! Read the fifth 
chapter of the epistle of James, and see the present 
times described, and the remedy indicated. Notice 
the various counts in that awful indictment against 
society in these " last days." The useless hoarding 
up of gold and silver — "and the rust of them shall 
be a witness against the rich, and shall eat their flesh 
as it were fire." It is not the gold and silver that 
shall be a witness against the rich, but the rust of 
them; i.e. the disuse of them; hoarding money simply 
for aecumulatioD and not to use for God's glory and 
the good of others. Think of the millions of dollars 
that are lying idle in the banks to-day while millions 
of human beings suffer tor the necessaries of life. 



Bible Harmony. 73 

Another count is the keeping back of " the hire of 
the laborers by fraud" ; labor troubles are among the 
most serious characteristics of these troublous times. 
Other counts are the wanton living in pleasure, ex- 
cess in every direction, injustice, and oppression ; and 
now the apostle comes to the remedy. Thank God, 
there is a remedy ! What is it ? " Be patient, there- 
fore, brethren, unto " — what ? Unto the time when 
education, art, and science shall civilize and elevate 
the world, and cure these evils ? is that what we are 
to wait for? Not so speaks the apostle. Does he 
tell us to be patient unto the time when the nations 
shall reform themselves, when the relation between 
labor and capital shall be amicably and righteously 
settled by governments, legislatures, co-operative so- 
cieties, or political parties ? Does he tell us to wait 
until the church wakes up from her sleep of religious 
ease and worldly comfort, and in the strength of God 
puts down these crying evils, and establishes peace in 
the earth ? No, he does not tell us to wait for any of 
these things, but — " Be patient, therefore, brethren, 
unto the coming of the Lord" This is the great event 
that constitutes not only the " blessed hope " of those 
who " look for him " (Heb. ix. 28), but also the only 
hope of the groaning creation. Therefore, brethren, 
" Be ye also patient ; stablish your hearts, for the 
coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one 
against another, brethren, unless ye be condemned ; 
behold, the Judge standeth before the door." 

God be praised for this bright promise, streaking 
the darkness of " this present evil world " ; blessed 



74 Bible Harmony. 

harbinger of the coming " perfect day " ! My soul 
goes out in most earnest longing as I pray, " Come 
quickly, Lord Jesus," not only for the deliverance of 
thine elect, "the firstfruits unto God and the Lamb" 
(Rev. xiv. 4), but also, and more if anything, for 
the deliverance of the "whole creation"; and "every 
valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill 
shall be made low [here's levelling by Christian com- 
munism], and the crooked shall be made straight, and 
the rough places plain, and the Glory of the Lord 
shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, 
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it " (Isa. xl. 
4, 5). Let the heavens [wicked governments] pass 
away with a great noise, and the elements (Gal. iv. 9) 
melt with fervent heat, and the earth, and the works 
that are therein, be discovered (2 Pet. hi. 10, N. V., 
margin ; compare Luke xii. 2) and burned up with 
the "fierce fire of God's jealousy" (Zeph. i. 14-18; 
hi; 8, 9). "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, 
look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwell- 
eth righteousness " ; and here is the promise, " Behold 
I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former 
shall not be remembered nor come into mind" (Isa. 
lxv. 17). Let us notice some of the things that the 
Bible reveals about this new heavens and now earth. 
First, in regard to the new heavens, i.e. the new 
government of this new world, the new ruling class. 
At the head of this government will be Christ, and 
associated with him as kings, priests, judges, and 
saviours are the saints. Satan and his wicked crew 
are bound and shut lip in the abyss, vv that lie should 



Bible Harmony. 75 

deceive the nations no more " (Rev. xx. 1-3). Hence 
" the whole earth is at rest and is quiet ; they break 
forth into singing" (Isa. xiv. 7). Under these chief 
rulers, Christ and the saints, will be subordinate 
rulers of every grade, righteous, just, and incor- 
ruptible. Read Isa. xi. and xii. for a description of 
that new order of things. Of the king we read that 
"the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit 
of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel 
and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of 
the Lord ; and shall make him of quick understand- 
ing in the fear of the Lord ; and he shall not judge 
after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the 
hearing of his ears ; but with righteousness shall he 
judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek 
of the earth ; and he shall smite the earth with the 
rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall 
he slay the wicked; and righteousness shall be the 
girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his 
reins." Both Isaiah and John speak of the new 
heavens and new earth and give descriptions, the 
difference between them being that Isaiah describes 
the new earth and John describes the neAv heaven ; 
that is, John describes the ruling element of the new 
order of things, while Isaiah describes the condition 
of the people under that rule. 

In the last two chapters of the Revelation, John 
describes the new heavens under the symbol of a 
magnificent city, the New Jerusalem; this wonderful 
city, we are told, is " the Bride, the Lamb's Wife " ; 
and the description that follows sets forth to the 



76 Bible Harmony. 

utmost extent of human language the grandeur and 
beauty of the glorified bride, represented by this 
great city. The bride is made up of the over- 
comers, who are also the kings and priests with 
Christ, the King of kings and Great High Priest. 
The glowing description of this city indicates the 
excellency and perfection of that new heavens. Its 
jasper walls and pearly gates, its foundations of pre- 
cious stones, and golden streets, are only representa- 
tions faintly symbolizing the transcendent majesty of 
that new and perfect government. Every blessing 
for mankind is represented as flowing out of this 
grand city. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb 
are the temple and the light of it ; " and the nations 
of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it ; 
and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and 
honor into it; and the gates of it shall not be shut 
at all by day: for there shall be no night there." 
This is no selfish, exclusive heaven, with narrow gates 
all fast upon a handful of saved, and nryriads of the 
lost eternally wailing round its outer walls ; this is a 
great city with twelve gates, each one wide enough 
for a regiment to march in abreast, and never shut, 
thank God! The River of the Water of Life has its 
source in this city and flows through it and out of it 
to give health and life wherever it flows (compare 
Ezek. xlvii. 1-12); and on either side of the river 
was there the Tree of Life, with its monthly fruitage 
for meat, and its abundant leafage for the "healing" 
of the "bruises and sores" of the nations (Ezek. 
xlvii. 12, margin). 



Bible Harmony. 77 

All this describes the goodness and benevolence of 
the new heavens, the government of the new cosmos ; 
and now what will be the condition of the people, 
the new earth, under such a government ? What else 
could it be but blessed and glorious? Just so sure 
as the present evil heavens produce a sin-and-sorrow- 
cursed earth, so that future righteous heavens shall 
produce an earth filled with the " peaceable fruit of 
righteousness." 

Isaiah describes this new earth (lxv. 17-25), when 
there shall be no more sorrow, wrong, or injustice, 
but " all shall know the Lord," and "all shall be 
righteous" (Isa. lx. 21). "The knowledge of the 
Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the 
sea " ; war shall be no more ; crime shall cease ; 
" They shall not hurt nor destroy in all God's holy 
mountain [kingdom]." Joy and beauty shall bud 
and blossom on every hand ; " the wilderness and the 
solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert 
shall rejoice and blossom as the rose ; it shall blossom 
abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing ; 
the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the 
excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the 
glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God." 
" Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree ; and 
instead of the brier shall come up the nryrtle tree ; 
and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an ever- 
lasting sign that shall not be cut off." "The wolf 
also shall dwell with the lamb ; and the leopard shall 
lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young 
lion, and the fatling' together; and a little child shall 



78 Bible Harmony. 

lead them." Everything animate and inanimate is 
represented as being in harmony, and rejoicing in 
this state of things. The Psalmist exclaims, " O 
worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness ; fear 
before him, all the earth. Say among the heathen 
that the Lord reigneth ; the world [the new cosmos'] 
shall be established that it shall not be moved; he 
shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens 
rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar 
and the fulness thereof; let the floods clap their 
hands ; let the hills be joyful together. Let the field 
be joyful, and all that is therein ; then shall all the 
trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord, for lie 
cometh, — he cometh to judge the earth ; he shall 
judge the world with righteousness, and the people 
with his truth." If you wish to read other descrip- 
tions of this new order of things, see Psa. lxxii., xcvii., 
xcviii., and many others. I do not mean to be under- 
stood as saying that this perfect condition of the 
earth will be affected instantaneously, but this Mill 
be the ultimate result under the sway of that godlike 
heavens, — Christ and his saints. God speed the 
joyful day when "this present evil world " shall pass 
away, with all its sin, misery, corruption, and death, 
and give place to that bright era of glory and blessed- 
ness ; when "Mercy and truth shall meet together. 
and righteousness and peace shall kiss each other' : 
when "Truth shall spring out of the earth, and 
righteousness shall look down from heaven, and the 
Lord shall give that which is good, and our land 
shall yield her increase, and righteousness shall 



Bible Harmony. 79 

go before him, and shall set us in the way of his 
steps." 

The first world extended from the creation to the 
flood, a period of 1656 years. The second one ex- 
tends from the flood to the " day of judgment," or 
the second coming of Christ, since he comes to judge 
the quick and dead (2 Tim. iv. 1). This world 
has already covered a period of more than four thou- 
sand years, and the great lines of prophecy as well 
as " the signs of the times " indicate that it has 
almost run its course and that the new heavens and 
new earth are close at hand, — " The Judge standeth 
at the door." The third world extends on from the 
second coming of Christ to " the dispensation of the 
fulness of times," when all things in heaven and 
earth shall be gathered together in Christ (Eph. i. 
10) ; " for he must reign until he hath put all enemies 
under his feet, all rule, all authority, and all power," 
and has destroyed the last enemy, death, and " then 
cometh the end " when " God shall be all in all." 



THE AGES. 

We will now consider the relation of the ages to 
the worlds. We have seen that there are three 
worlds ; these worlds are subdivided into ages. Of 
the first world we know but little ; all the account 
of it we have is contained in a few verses at the com- 
mencement of the sixth chapter of Genesis ; we 
know not what subdivisions that world may have 
been divided into. Of this present world we have 



80 Bible Harmony. 

a full record, and it plainly appears that it lias been 
divided into three ages. 

1. The Patriarchal age, from the flood to the 
death of Jacob. 

2. The Jewish age, from the death of Jacob to 
the first advent. 

3. The Gospel age, from the first to the second 
advent. 

The new world is divided up into many ages, — 
" the ages to come " — of which the millennium is a 
specimen ; that world is " the age of ages," as we 
will notice further on. It may be doubted that the 
ages have the above specific significance in the 
Bible ; we use the word in a variety of ways more or 
less vague and indefinite ; as, for example, we speak 
of "the middle ages " and "the dark ages," meaning 
the time midway between the present and the begin- 
ning of the Christian era; we also speak of the 
" Elizabethan age," " the age of Louis XIV.," etc. It 
is supposed by many that this word is used in the 
Bible in this same loose, indefinite sort of a way. 
But I think that any one who will study the subject 
without prejudice will be speedily convinced that 
however indefinite we may use the word in general 
language, in the Bible it has a distinctive and con- 
stant meaning. 

The original word is won; it means a space or 
period of time, one's lifetime or age, etc. The 
meaning of the word is confused in the common 
version of the New Testament by its being translated 
the same as cosmos, world; ceon is an altogether differ- 



Bible Harmony. 81 

ent word from cosmos, as we shall clearly show, and yet 
it is rendered the same, a gross and very misleading 
error. This error is rectified to a great extent in 
the margin of the new version : the text of the new 
version follows the old, but in the margin the correct 
rendering is usually given ; therefore, if the reader 
will look out the references given on this subject in 
the margin of the new version, he will in most cases 
find the statements fully verified. 

There are only two places in the common version 
where the word ceon is rendered as it should be in 
every case, age ; but these two instances are signifi- 
cant because they show of themselves the meaning 
of the word. In Col. i. 26 we read of " the mystery 
which hath been hid from ages and from generations, 
but now is made manifest to his saints." In Eph. ii. 
7 we read that " in the ages to come God will show 
the exceeding riches of his grace." These passages 
plainly indicate two things in regard to this word : 
1. The ages are limited periods of time ; several of 
them have run their course and come to an end in 
the past, and there are yet more to come. 2. " The 
ages to come " are to be richer in the manifestation 
of the grace of God than past ages ; in other words, 
it appears that God's grace broadens and his plan 
develops as the ages roll; mysteries that have been 
hid in past ages are made known, and the future 
ages are to witness " the riches of his grace " to 
an extent " exceeding " that of any previous age. 
These points are clear from these two passages ; 
but we could not determine from these whether 



82 Bible Harmony. 

the ages are definite periods of time or not ; to 
settle this point let us look at other scripture. 

Heb. ix. 26. "Now once at the end of the ages, 
hath Christ been manifested to put away sin by the 
sacrifice of himself." It appears from this passage 
that when Christ came to suffer and die it was at the 
end of a series of ages. Again, in 1 Cor. x. 11, we 
read, " These things were written for our admonition 
upon whom the ends of the ages have come." This 
peculiar expression is clear when we consider that 
the apostle, and they to whom he wrote, lived during 
the transition period between two ages : the Jewish 
age was coming to a close ; the Gospel age was begin- 
ning : thus " the ends of the ages " had come upon 
them. This explanation is still further confirmed 
when we understand that the word here rendered 
"are come," means strictly are met; thus bringing 
out the idea of the meeting of the two ends of the 
Jewish and Gospel ages. Furthermore, it is evident 
from many scriptures that the time from the first to 
the second advent is an age (see Gal. i. 4, " this present 
evil age " ; Tit. ii. 12, " this present age " ; also 1 Cor. 
ii. 6-8; iii. 18; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Eph. vi. 12; 1 Tim. 
vi. 17; and many other passages). It will be found 
in all these passages that the word is rendered world; 
but by referring to the margin of the new version, 
the correct rendering will be found. To still further 
confirm this point see Matt. xxiv. 3, — " What shall 
be the sign of the coming and of the end of the ago ? " 
From this passage it is evident that the end of " this 
present evil age" is synchronous with the second 



Bible Harmony. 83 

advent ; and then, what ? then comes eternity, most 
Christians think; not so, however; then comes a new 
world containing other ages, even "ages of ages," 
until "the dispensation of the fulness of times" 
[ages]. In proof of this see Luke xx. 34-36 ; " The 
children of this age marry and are given in marriage ; 
but they which shall be counted worthy to obtain 
that age and the resurrection from the dead neither 
marry nor are given in marriage," etc. This passage 
plainly teaches two important points : 1. At the close 
of this age the resurrection takes place. 2. Then 
comes not eternity, but another age, — "that age." 
Jesus is plainly talking of two ages, — "this age" 
and " that age " ; and at the meeting of these two 
ages the resurrection is located ; here the idea of the 
" ages to come " is clearly brought out. We will 
now notice some passages to show the difference 
between ceon and cosmos (Matt. xiii. 38, 39). Here 
Christ explains the parable of the sower; he says, 
" the field is the ivorld ; the harvest is the end of the 
world" Reading this from the common version, 
most persons would suppose that the word world 
means the same in both places ; but such is not the 
case ; the first word is cosmos, the second is ceon. 
How misleading to render these very different Greek 
words by the same English word ! The field is the 
world \_cosmos~\ ; the world of mankind, where the good 
seed, " the children of the kingdom " or " the Word " 
(Mark. iv. 14) was sown; the harvest is the end of 
the ceon, age ; not the end of the race of mankind, or 
the end of this planet on which we live, or the end 



84 Bible Harmony. 

of time, — but the end of the age, the Gospel age, 
when there will be a harvest, just as there was at the 
end of the Jewish age (Luke x. 2), preparatory 
to the introduction of a new age and a new world, 
or order of things. This is plain and simple; but 
the rendering of the old version makes confusion. 

Again see Heb. ix. 26 : the apostle says that Christ 
did not need to offer himself often, as the Jewish 
high priest made offering every year ; " for then must 
he often have suffered since the foundation of the 
world ; but now once in the end of the world hath he 
appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." 
Here again the first " world" is from cosmos, the 
second one is from won ; but both are rendered by the 
same word, thus again making confusion. The sense 
of the passage is that Christ must often have suffered 
since the foundation of the world ; cosmos, the world 
of mankind ; but now once in the end of the age, i.e. 
at the end of the Jewish age, Jesus appeared to put 
away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 

We will notice one more passage (Heb. i. 2). M By 
whom also he made the worlds." Most readers of 
this passage would get the idea that by the u worlds " 
here is meant the material worlds, the planets and 
heavenly bodies, and they would understand that 
Jesus created the material universe. But this idea 
is overthrown at once when we learn that the word 
here properly rendered is ages — "By whom he made 
[i.e. constituted or arranged] the ages." Jesus 
Christ is the one central figure of all the ages. 
Before he came he was pointed to in a hundred 



Bible Harmony. 85 

wavs in types, allegories, patterns, shadows, and 
prophecies; and when he came, he came as the ful- 
iilment of all these; and in all future ages he will 
be " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and 
for the ages." An ever-increasing, broadening, and 
deepening revelation of God in Christ has character- 
ized all the ages past. From the first promise in 
Eden that the seed of the woman should bruise the 
serpent's head, Jesus was more and more revealed, 
age after age, until he himself came, that we might 
behold " the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Christ." Jesus is the great 
revelation of God to man ; hence God arranged the 
ages with special reference to him ; that is, each 
succeeding age has taken its distinctive characteristic 
from that measure of light, progressively revealed, 
in regard to this image of God, the divine Word, 
Jesus Christ. How simple, and yet how grand and 
true, is the declaration — " By whom also he arranged 
the ages " ! Take out Christ from the ages and what 
would be left? An empty shell, a husk, a shadow 
without a substance, — nothing. Jesus makes them 
what they are, and without him they would not be. 
This progressive revelation of God to man through 
Jesus Christ, which has given character to all the 
ages, is far more glorious and important than the 
creation of the material universe. But this important 
truth is entirely obscured by the misleading transla- 
tion of the common version. 

Thus it may be clearly seen that there is a great 
difference between these two words, though they are 



86 Bible Harmony. 

rendered alike. A world signifies a certain order of 
things as it relates to the whole race of mankind ; 
an age is a period during which God is dealing, ac- 
cording to a certain method, with his people only. 
The transition from one age to another involves a 
change in the mode of God's dealings with his own 
special people, but does not affect the race as a whole. 
A change from one world to another affects all man- 
kind. The flood was the transition period from the 
"old world" to the present world; and the change 
affected every member of the race. The Patriarchal 
age was the first one in " this world " ; in this age 
God's people were represented by one man at a 
time, — Noah, and the patriarchs following him down 
to Abraham ; then successively by Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, one at a time, until the death of Jacob ; 
when, for the first time, " the twelve tribes of Israel " 
(Gen. xlix. 28) are recognized as God's people, and 
the Jewish age begins : this latter continued until the 
first advent, when the Christian era was introduced, 
which has run on to the present time. Now let it be 
noticed that these ages are not characterized in them- 
selves, nor distinguished one from another, by any- 
thing affecting the world as a whole. God's people 
alone have been affected by these changes ; the world 
has gone on through these aeres, and from one to 
another, without even so much as knowing anything 
about the transition. The great epochs of the world's 
history by no means correspond to the changes in 
these ages. For instance, the kingdom of Judah con- 
tinued down to 606 B.C., when a great change took 



Bible Harmon//. 87 

place ; the crown was taken from the last Juclsean 
king (Ezek. xxi. 25-27), and universal dominion 
given to the Gentiles. This was the beginning of 
"the times of the Gentiles" (Luke xxi. 24). But 
there was no change in the dispensation, i.e. in God's 
method with his people; they still continued under 
the same law down to the time of Christ. 

On the other hand, at the first advent there was a 
great change in the dispensation, from Judaism to 
Christianity, from law to the gospel, from works to 
faith, from the schoolmaster to Christ (Gal. iii. 24) ; 
but there was no change in the world of mankind ; 
they continued right on 'under the Roman yoke for 
centuries afterwards. Thus the distinction between 
these two significant words as used in the New Tes- 
tament appears. A world is an order, or arrange- 
ment, or system of things, ordained of God for a long 
period of time, related to and affecting the entire 
race. An age is a shorter period included in the 
world, during which rules and methods obtain for 
the special guidance and training of God's people 
without any immediate reference to the world at 
large. 

Some may still doubt that the worlds and the ages 
have the definite and specific significance given to 
them in the foregoing exposition. I can only say 
further to such ones that if they will look up the 
subject critically and carefully, they will find a great 
mass of evidence to confirm this view. In addition 
to all that has been presented, let the following facts 
be carefully noted and studied : 



88 Bible Harmony. 

This word ceon occurs in the New Testament in 
so many peculiar and varying forms as to make it 
certain that it expresses some deep and important 
meaning well worth searching out. First we have 
the single word many times repeated both in the 
singular and the plural ; " this age," and " that age," 
" this present evil age," " be not conformed to this 
age," " the wisdom of this age," " the god of this 
age," etc. ; also in the plural, the ages, past and to 
come, are spoken of many times ; in the common 
version this word in the above expressions is ren- 
dered "world," but the word is ceon, age, and should 
be so rendered. Then we have the word in connec- 
tion with various prepositions : from the age, Luke 
i. 70 ; from the ages, Eph. hi. 9 ; out of the age, 
John ix. 32 ; before the ages, 1 Cor. ii. 7 ; before 
times of ages, or before age-times, Titus i. 2; the 
plan of the ages, Eph. iii. 11 ; the age to come, Heb. 
vi. 5 ; the ages to come, Eph. ii. 7 ; the end of the 
age, Matt. xxiv. 3 ; the end of the ages, Heb. ix. 
26; the ends of the ages, 1 Cor. x. 11. In these 
expressions I give the literal of the original, as will 
be found in the Emphatic Diaglott, and in most cases 
in the margin of the new version. In the common 
version these expressions are translated in the most 
unwarranted and capricious manner, as 1 shall 
presently show. Furthermore, in connection with the 
preposition eis (which means to, for, unto, throughout, 
etc.), we have the following remarkable changes: 

1. Unto the age, Mark iii. 29. 

2. Unto the ages, Luke i. 33. 



Bible Harmony. 89 

3. Unto all the ages, Jude 25. 

4. Unto the age of the age, Heb. i. 8. 

5. Unto all the generations of the age of ages, 
Eph. iii. 21. 

6. Unto the ages of the ages, Rev. i. 6. 

7. Unto the day of an age, 2 Pet. iii. 18. 

It will help the reader to understand this last 
singular expression to know that it is exactly equiva- 
lent to that found in Mic. v. 2 ; see margin. 

Can any one believe that these peculiar forms have 
no special meaning ? Is all this a mere play upon 
words ? — simply purposeless repetition ? Remem- 
ber God by his spirit is the real author of the in- 
spired Word. " Holy men of God spake as they were 
moved b}^ the holy spirit." Is it not certain then, as 
I have said, that these varying forms, so peculiar 
and striking, hide some spiritual mystery? and 
would it not have been more respectful to God's 
Word if the translators of the common version and 
of the new version too, had rendered these expres- 
sions literally, even though they might not know 
what they meant, rather than to obscure the sense 
altogether by the false and capricious renderings in 
which they have indulged ? However, if one will 
search diligently in the manner I have indicated, 
they will find the truth on this great subject and 
will come to an understanding of God's worlds and 
ages. 

If the reader looks these references out in the 
common version he will perhaps hardly believe that 
the above are literal translations of the same ; but 



90 Bible Harmony. 

if he will look them out in the Emphatic Diaglott, 
or any other suitable authority on the original, he 
will find them exactly correct; and he may be led 
to ask the question : Why are they not translated 
correctly in the common version ? and why are these 
incorrect renderings of the common version perpetu- 
ated in the new version ? It would seem that tins 
word is left in this confusion for fear that by a cor- 
rect translation of it the creed would be endangered; 
at least, this would seem to be the reason why these 
errors are perpetuated in the new version, because 
the revisers notice this same fault with reference to 
other words, — that is, translating the same original 
by several different English words, — and they point 
out with great painstaking how they have corrected 
the fault in very many passages, and yet in re- 
gard to this word they have followed in the track 
of their predecessors, and have been, if anything, even 
more inconsistent and capricious than they. The 
renderings I have given above are exactly literal ; 
the reader can compare them with both the old and 
new versions, text and margin, and draw his own 
conclusions. 

I will simply add in this connection that I have no 
doubt but that these ages, or " age-times,"" as it i> in 
some cases expressed, are foreshadowed in the law 
by the equally peculiar Sabbatic and Jubilee limes. 
(See Lev. xxiii. and xxv., and other passages in the 
law.) The "seven days," "seven weeks," "seven 
months," and "seven years "of the Sabbatic times 
and the " seven times seven years," bringing us to 



Bible Harmony. 91 

" the fiftieth year," the year of Jubilee, — all these I 
doubt not are types and shadows of the ages, age of 
ages, and ages of ages, of the New Testament. The 
purpose of these Sabbatic and Jubilee times is 
also typical of "the purpose of the ages." In and 
through the former were wrought out certain cleans- 
ings, releases, redemptions, and restorations on the 
natural plane, under the law. So in and through 
the age-times are wrought out the same things on 
the spiritual plane for beggared, enslaved, and lost 
man, under God's grace. These are " the times of 
the restitution of all things " (Acts iii. 21) which 
shall continue their course until " in the dispensa- 
tion of the fulness of times, all things in Heaven and 
earth shall be gathered together in Christ." 

Here then is the framework, the worlds and the 
ages, — God's " time and seasons " (Acts i. 7) — upon 
which is wrought out God's gracious designs and 
purposes, as we shall try to show in the next chapter. 
Furthermore, an understanding of this framework 
will help us especially in " rightly dividing the Word 
of truth." With this framework in mind we shall be 
readily able to locate any particular passage of scrip- 
ture — to tell the world and the age to which it be- 
longs, and so to avoid confusion and error. All this 
will appear more and more plainly as we proceed in 
our study of the Word. 



CHAPTER IV. 
god's woek and plan. 

In Epli. iii. 11, we find the expression, " according 
to the eternal purpose"; this should be rendered, "ac- 
cording to the purpose (or plan) of the ages," as may 
be seen in the margin of the new version, and in any 
word-for-word translation like Rotherham's, Young's, 
or the Emphatic Diaglott. Rotherham renders it, 
" according to a plan of the ages." 

This expression is pregnant with meaning ; it indi- 
cates that God, through the Ages, is prosecuting a 
certain Work, according to a prearranged Plan. 
The three points to consider, then, are the Ages, 
the Work, and the Plan. The first one we have al- 
ready considered in the preceding chapter ; in the 
present chapter, then, we are to consider the Work 
and the Plan. 

GOD'S WORK. 

In the first account of the creation (which closes 
with the third verse of the second chapter of Gen- 
esis), we are told that God created everything " very 
good," and then rested; and vet later on we find him 
at work again. Jesus said, kk My Father worketh 
hitherto, and I work" (John v. 17). How is this? 
The common idea amounts to about this: that God 

W2, 



Bible Harmony. 93 

made everything " very good," and rested ; but that 
the devil steps in and upsets His work, spoils every- 
thing, so that the Lord has to go to work again to 
repair damages, and he has been at work ever since, 
together with Christ j ultimately they will get things 
pretty well straightened out ; they will not be able to 
wholly undo the evil, or to entirely repair the mis- 
chief that the devil has done, for some will be lost for- 
ever, and suffer eternally in hell ; however, the Father 
and the Son will succeed in rescuing a large number 
(some say the majority) of the race from this awful 
doom, and to this end they work. But who can ac- 
cept this view after they have soberly thought it over 
as above ? Does it not greatly detract from the char- 
acter of God ? in fact, does it not utterly falsify his 
character, making him out to be a weakling like our- 
selves, who can be thwarted in his will, obstructed in 
his plans, and successfully resisted ? Views that lead 
to such conclusions must be erroneous. " Woe unto 
him that striveth with his Maker ! Let the pot- 
sherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall 
the clay say to him that fashioneth it, what makest 
thou? or [shall] thy work [say], he hath no hands? " 
We have already learned in this volume that "All 
things are of God " ; " He worketh all things after the 
counsel of his own will," and we cannot accept any view 
that falsifies those grand and glorious statements. But 
then, what shall we do with the above apparently con- 
flicting statements? — everything "very good," and 
God resting ; and soon after, everything very bad, 
and going from bad to worse, apparently, and God 
working? 



94 Bible • Harmony. 

It is well known to all Bible students that in the 
first two chapters of Genesis we have two distinct, 
and in some respects apparently contradictory ac- 
counts of the creation. Skeptics have called atten- 
tion to these apparent contradictions as evidences of 
the unreliable character of the Bible. The first ac- 
count is contained in the first chapter and the first 
three verses of the second chapter. The second 
account embraces the remainder of the second chap- 
ter. The apparent contradictions and discrepancies 
beween these two accounts are quite numerous and 
in some particulars rather startling, as any one can 
see who will carefully examine and compare them. 

It seems a discrepancy, to begin with, that there 
should be two accounts. Why should not every 
particular and detail be embraced in one full ac- 
count without perplexing us with two partial and 
varying ones? It would seem as though the one 
account would be preferable ;. surely this would be 
the verdict of human wisdom. But God's ways are 
not our ways nor his thoughts our thoughts. He lias 
given us four gospels instead of one, thus supplying 
a fruitful field for cavillers to rake up objections and 
note contradictions. But there is not one discrep- 
ancy between the gospels that is not capable o\ a 
perfectly consistent solution, and that docs not hide 
some gem of truth. So here in these two accounts 
there is a reason, we may be sure, for this dual pres- 
entation of this greatest event on record, the creation 
of the world. If we humbly sit at the feet of divine 
wisdom, as Mary sat at the feet o^ Jesus, it may 



Bible Harmony. 95 

be that lie will give us the key to unlock this mys- 
tery. 

Remember, the Bible is written in parables and 
dark sayings. The scriptures are a veil as well as a 
revelation. In the Word Incarnate the truth was 
" hid " as well as revealed (Col. ii. 3) ; so it is in the 
Written Word. To some it is given to know the 
mysteries, to others it is not given. 

We are sure that there is a spirit to this part of 
the Word, for Paul plainly indicates it when he tells 
us in Rom. v. 14, that Adam was a " figure " (type, 
same word as in margin of 1 Cor. x. 11), of Him that 
was to come, Jesus Christ, the finished Adam. This 
account then is an "allegory " ; like that in the latter 
part of Gal. iv. it has a spiritual meaning; what is it? 
If I err not, the key that unlocks this mystery is this : 
The first account is prophetical, setting forth in mystic 
prophecy the work of creation as it was to be in the 
process, and as it will be in the perfect finished result. 
The second account is historical, setting forth the 
work as it actually was at that stage of the process. 

The principle of mystic prophecy is stated by the 
apostle in Rom. iv. 17. " God calleth those things 
that be not as though they were." God speaks of 
what he purposes to do, as though it were done. He 
speaks of a work in process as though completed. 
He speaks of things that are not as though they were. 
The Bible is full of illustrations of this principle ; 
take one very striking one. 

Read the seventeenth chapter of Genesis and note 
the tense of the verb in the fifth verse. " A father of 



96 Bible Harmony. 

many nations have I made thee." Humanly speaking-, 
God had not at that time made Abraham a father of 
many nations. He had only one son, Ishmael, the 
child of the bondwoman ; and in the common course 
of nature there was no possibility of his having any 
more (see Rom. iv. 17-21) ; and yet God says, " The 
father of many nations have I made thee," as though 
it was something he had already done for him. Paul 
tells us that God was speaking of things that were 
not, as though they were. God has a right to speak 
thus. What God purposes to do is as good as done ; 
nothing can thwart or disarrange his plans ; there is 
no possibility of failure. Hence he has a right to 
speak of things that are not as though they were. 
When God makes a promise he need not say, I will 
do so and so, but I have done it. In Rev. xxi. 5, 6, 
the expressed purpose, " Behold, I make all things 
new," is followed by the promise in the future tense, 
" I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain 
of the water of life freely." But sandwiched between 
the two, as if to assure us that there is no doubt 
about the fulfilment, comes in the grand declaration, 
"These words are faithful and true — it is done, 1 
am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." 
Thus we may rest on God's promises witli the same 
assurance as though we already had the fulfilment. 

As God spoke to Abraham, so he spoke by the 
mouth of his servant Moses in the scripture we are 
studying. In this first account of the creation he is 
speaking of tilings that are not as though they were. 
He speaks not as things actually were at that time. 



Bible Harmony. 97 

but as they will be when completed; but he has a 
right to speak in the past tense as we have seen, 
because this account is prophetical, expressing God's 
purpose, and hence absolutely certain of accomplish- 
ment. 

In one respect at least we are sure that this first 
account speaks of things that are not as though they 
were ; namely, when it says that Adam was created 
in the image of God. Now we are certain that Adam 
was not created in God's image at that time, — that 
no one has been thus created as yet except Jesus 
Christ. He is the only human being that has ever 
been finished; hence he is "the firstborn of every 
creature," and " the beginning of the creation of 
xod" (Rev. iii. 14). If Adam was actually created 
in the likeness of God, then he, and not Christ, was 
the beginning of God's creation. That Adam was not 
originally created in the image of God is also made 
plain in 1 Cor. xv. 45-49. In this passage Adam and 
Christ are contrasted; it is here shown how they 
differed. Adam was not like Christ ; they were not 
"made" alike (verse 45). Hence, since Christ is 
like God, and Adam was not like Christ, Adam was 
not like God. This is certain ; and yet we read in 
Gen. i. 28 that " God created man in his own image." 
How can we understand this except as above ? And 
this is no more strange than what God says to 
Abraham, "A father of many nations have I made 
thee," "when as yet he had no child" (Acts vii. 5). 
The rule that God " calleth those things that be not 
as though they were " makes all plain ; and we shall 



98 Bible Harmony. 

find that in every particular and detail this rule fully 
reconciles these two accounts. 

The limits of this volume will not allow me to go 
into this most interesting subject in all its details; 
but if the reader have " eyes to see," and he will 
follow out this line of thought, he will, I think, be 
led into a rich mine of truth that will yield much 
precious ore. I shall have occasion again to refer to 
this principle and to give other illustrations. 

The foregoing explains the apparent discrepancy 
of God resting, in Genesis, and working, later on. 
The announcement of God's rest is prophetical ; it is 
yet in the future. Let it be also noticed in the ac- 
count that it was Grod who rested on the seventh day : 
there was nothing said about man resting; it was 
(rod's rest day. Of course this has a spiritual mean- 
ing, for certainly God did not need to rest literally, 
as though he was tired. When is God's rest day ? 
It had not come when Christ was here on earth, for 
he said, " My father worketh hitherto, and I work." 
But when the promised seed, the real Adam, of 
which the first Adam was only a " figure,*" — when 
this finished seed is complete, — then will come God's 
rest day. It takes both the male and the female to 
make the one Adam (Gen. v. 1, 2). ik God called 
their name Adam." Christ and his bride make the 
one "new man," the real Adam; and when he is 
come the work of regeneration wil] be given into his 
hands, just as generation was the work of the first 
Adam and Eve. And when the work is thus taken 
in charge by God's "Son," even his " firstborn," 



Bible Harmony. 99 

then God rests. " And I heard a great voice out of 
heaven saying, behold the tabernacle of God is with 
men; and he will dwell with them, and they shall 
be his people, and God. himself shall be with them, 
and be their God." What God sought for with his 
ancient people, u a sanctuary" (Ex. xxv. 8), and 
could not have because of their perversity (Ex. 
xxxiii. 7), he has at length found in the new heavens 
and new earth. His tabernacle is with men, and he 
will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, 
and God himself shall be with them and be their 
God. Notice how the idea of God's association with 
men is repeated three times, as though now at 
length the Father's heart was satisfied. He has got 
home ; he is with his children ; the completing of 
the work is handed over to the elder son, and the 
Father rests. " And God blessed the seventh day, 
and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested 
from all his work which God created and made." 
O blessed rest of God, speedily dawn upon us, that 
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man 
may be known in all the earth. This point will be 
still further illustrated in the second section of this 
chapter. 

This explanation of the two accounts also fully 
sets forth the ivork of God. " My Father worketh." 
What is his work ? The creation of a race of beings 
like himself. This work he announced when he said 
" in the beginning," " Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness, and let them have domin- 



100 Bible Harmony. 

man alone, bnt the race ; and this is indicated in his 
manner of speaking. "Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness, and let them " — not 
simply the first man, but them, all men, the entire 
human race — " let them have dominion." No man 
as yet has been created in the image of God except- 
ing Jesus Christ, and man has never yet had the 
dominion promised; but he will have it through 
Jesus Christ, the pattern man of God's finished 
creation. This point also we shall notice again fur- 
ther on in the chapter. 

It will make a great difference in all our theology 
whether we consider God's work as having been 
completed in Eden, and then upset by the devil, or 
whether we see that his creative work 011I3- began 
there, that the fall was a part of that work, and that 
redemption, resurrection, judgment, probation, are 
simply steps and stages in the same creative process. 
The common idea makes the fall of man no less a 
mishap to God than to man, and redemption is a 
makeshift expedient — a " scheme," as it is often 
expressed — to repair damages. No one can fail of 
seeing that such an idea is greatly derogatory to the 
character of God, making him "altogether such an 
one as ourselves," a being subject to accident ami fail- 
ure, instead of one " who worketh all things after the 
counsel of his own will " ; and yet we should have to 
accept this idea or else take the ground set forth in 
the foregoing. This is, I am persuaded, the true 
ground. Creation began in paradise : paradise lost 
was a step in the creative process; and all the re- 



Bible Harmony. 101 

suits of that step up to paradise regained are further 
stages in the same process ; no one as yet has gone 
through the whole process of creation, excepting 
Christ ; he has reached the " perfect man " ; all 
others have stopped short of that consummation, 
and gone down into "the dust of the earth." Christ 
is the first that should rise " out from among the 
dead ones," and after him, in God's " due season," 
shall come the race ; for " as in Adam all die, even 
so in Christ shall all be made alive," and " as we 
have borne the image of the earthly, so shall we 
bear the image of the heavenly." 

This, then, is God's work — the creation of a race 
of beings like himself. The Father and the Son are 
doing this creative work, and its ultimate accomplish- 
ment does not depend upon man at all. " We are 
God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works, which God hath before ordained that we 
should walk in them" (Eph. ii. 10). "We are 
God's husbandry [farm, see margin] ; ye are God's 
building" (1 Cor. iii. 9). God is man's proprietor, 
and will surely make the best of his own property. 
Nay, more ; God is man's maker, and he will not fail 
to have a " desire to the work of his hands " (Job xiv. 
15), that it may be brought to completion and perfec- 
tion. " If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new 
creation." Surely a man cannot recreate himself any 
more than he could create himself in the first place. 
What man does, and the relation it has to the crea- 
tive process, we shall see when we come to consider 
the question, "What is man?" (chap, viii.) also 



102 Bible Harmony. 

free will (chap. ix.). The creative work, however, 
is in the hands of the Father and the Son, and is sure 
of a successful consummation. 

This view is full of comfort. If we are God's 
workmanship, the work will surely be done, and 
done well. He speaks with the simplicity and quiet- 
ness of conscious power, — " Let us make man in our 
image," — as though it were the easiest thing imagina- 
ble to make a man in the image of God ; and " hath he 
said and shall he not do it? hath he spoken and 
shall he not make it good " ? God's own veracity is 
at stake here ; his own reputation and credit, so to 
speak, is involved. For his own sake he will com- 
plete and perfect his work ; and so he speaks by his 
prophets. "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy 
transgressions for mine own sake, and will not 
remember thy sins." Again he says, " I have blotted 
out as a thick cloud thy transgressions ; return unto 
me, for I have redeemed thee." This is all the work 
of the Lord ; hence the prophet breaks out, " Sing, 
O ye Heavens, for the Lord hath done it ; shout, ye 
lower parts of the earth ; break forth into singing, ye 
mountains, O forest, and eveiy tree therein, for the 
Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified himself 
[mark it, glorified himself ; made his own word 
good] in Israel. Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, 
and lie that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord 
that maketh all things ; that stretcheth forth the heav- 
ens alone ; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself" 
(Isa. xliv. 21— 24 ; see also Kzek. xx. whole chapter). 
If we can only see this truth, and get it well in 



Bible Harmony. 103 

mind, we shall have no fear of the final result of 
God's creative plan. God's own honor is at stake.' 
His declared purpose — " Let us make man in our 
image" — cannot fail. For his own sake, if not for 
man's, he will bring the work to a perfect completion, 
a faultless consummation ; and a godlike race shall 
yet people the earth, to the universal praise of God's 
workmanship, and the honor and glory of the Christ, 
God's co-laborer. 

This blessed truth also explains why man is so im- 
perfect, and full of defects, and flaws, and failures. 
He is unfinished; he is only half made. "Ephraim 
is a cake not turned" (Hos. vii. 8). What can you 
expect of man in this crude, rough state ? " He re- 
membereth our frame ; he knoweth that we are dust." 
I will also notice, by the way, that these considera- 
tions have a bearing on the question of the share that 
man has in the work of his own salvation. Accord- 
ing to the common notion a man's salvation depends 
entirely on himself ; in order to be saved he must ful- 
fil certain conditions. God has done his part, made 
every provision and preparation ; now if man will 
repent, and believe, and do this and that he will be 
saved; otherwise, not. I believe that this sort of 
teaching is a great mistake ; it arises from a misap- 
prehension of the nature of salvation, and of the 
work of God. The work of God, we have seen, 
is to create a race of beings like himself, and he is 
responsible for the completion and perfection of that 
work. And what is salvation? Just one word an- 
swers — life. Salvation, in a Bible sense, is life — life 



104 Bible Harmony. 

from the dead. He who does not see this fact clearly 
will never arrive at a correct estimation of the condi- 
tions of salvation. He who does see this, will recognize 
at once the fact that a different aspect is pnt upon 
the question of the conditions. Fallen man in scrip- 
ture is represented as dead, having "no life in him." 
What we call life, i.e. physical existence, is not rec- 
ognized as such in the Bible. " Let the dead bury 
their dead" (Matt. viii. 22). In this Bible sense 
those bearing the corpse were as dead as the corpse 
itself. Recognizing this fact, we can readily appre- 
ciate another, — that the mission of Jesus is to bring 
life to a dead race. " I am come that they might 
have life, and that they might have it more abun- 
dantly." Fallen man is not simply guilty, needing 
pardon, or sinful, needing cleansing; but he is dead, 
needing life, and anything short of that is vain, use- 
less. Salvation, then, is life for a dead race. The 
scriptures are full of this truth ; it is the great cen- 
tral truth of the word — Christ our life, not simply 
Christ our helper, or pattern, or mercy seat, or media- 
tor, or elder brother; all this is blessed, and yet it 
falls short of the fulness of Christ's mission. 1 1 e 
comes to bring life ; he is our life as he himself de- 
clares. "I am the resurrection and the life." All 
this will be fully considered further on in the book ; 
I refer to it now to show the relation between the 
work of God and what man does. 

Salvation is the consummation of creation, the 
impartation of life — Wk the Life o\' God" — bo a dead 
race, thus bringing them finally to his image and 



Bible Harmony. 105 

likeness ; and this work depends solely on God ; it 
is not conditional, for if it were it would be contin- 
gent ; but that is inconceivable ; we cannot for a 
moment suppose that God's creative work is contin- 
gent, or that he would begin a work and not bring it 
to a perfect finish. " When I begin, I will also make 
an end," saith the Lord (1 Sam. hi. 12). 

In a word, the truth on this point, as I conceive 
it, — with which conception the scripture, I think, 
will be found fully accordant — is this : all that man 
does has to do with his training, development, in- 
struction ; his final salvation, i.e. entrance into life, in 
no sense or degree depends on what he does. The end 
is fixed and settled in the immutable purpose of God, 
and all will ultimately be made alive in Christ, as 
surely and unconditionally as all have died in Adam. 
The misconception that many entertain on this sub- 
ject arises from their religions training, and not from 
the teaching of the Bible. Salvation is conceived of 
as simply escape from the penalty of sin, i.e. an end- 
less hell ; and in order to effect this escape man must 
do certain things, thereby securing to his own credit 
the merits of Christ ; add to the above the common 
ideas of crowding man's entire probation into this 
present life, and investing him with a power to per- 
sistently withstand his maker, so that in vain God 
expends upon him all the resources of infinite mercy, 
wisdom, and power — add these errors, and you have 
a groundwork of falsehood sufficiently broad to build 
up almost any amount of tradition, superstition, and 
absurdity. Such is the groundwork of the current 



106 Bible Harmony. 

creeds. Is it any wonder that, founded upon error 
and misconception, they should be of the same ma- 
terial throughout. 

On the other hand, when we see the truth — that 
salvation is life — the consummation of the creative 
work of God, the completion of Christ's mission, who 
came to give life, who is our life, " the life of the 
world," and hence is called the Vivifier — "the life- 
giver of the world," " the life-giver of all men " — 
when we see that this great work of giving life unto 
a dead race must be entirely of God, and has nothing 
to do with the penalty for sin, any more than it has 
with the reward of good works, and that the principal 
part of this great life-giving work is to be accomplished 
in "the ages to come" — when we see further that 
God has resources infinite, inexhaustible, " whereby 
he is able to subdue all things unto himself " — 
when we see something of these grand truths, we 
shall talk no longer of the conditions of salvation. By 
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, 
and so death passed upon all men unconditional} \y ; so 
by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon 
all men unto justification of life — equally uncon- 
ditionally (Rom. iv.). Man exercises his freedom 
intermediately, between death and life ; the individ- 
ual is not responsible for his dead state, nor ean lie 
help himself to life; but intermediately he is free: 
lie has his choice, and is dealt with accordingly. 
Here comes in all that man does — repenting, be- 
lieving, striving, working, praying, lighting, endur- 
ing — by these experiences man is developed, taught, 



Bible Harmony. 107 

and trained, while he draws nearer and nearer to the 
final goal, which is immutably settled in the will of 
God. As the beginning must be of God, so is the end. 
As man cannot originate absolutely, neither can he 
determine. Beginnings and finalities are entirely in 
God's hands. " I am the first and the last, saith the 
Lord." " I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and 
the end, the first and the last." If it were not so, 
everything would be uncertain ; if the final outcome 
were contingent, how could we be sure what it would 
be ? it might be chaos, instead of the perfect cosmos 
of " all things made new." But when we are fully 
assured that God is the first and the last, then we can 
look upon all things intermediate with perfect trust 
and composure. Think you that God would make 
the ultimate results of his plans and purposes depend 
upon weak, foolish mortals? — place the infinite in 
the hands of the finite ? I tell you nay ; God alone 
determines eternity. " From everlasting to everlast- 
ing, I am God " ; thus much for the work of God. 
We turn now to 

THE PLAN. 

The work of God is prosecuted according to a pre- 
arranged, definite plan. We might know that this 
was so from the fact that it is all of God ; this being 
so, we should expect, of course, that nothing would be 
left to chance, or to the emergencies of the case, but 
that everything should be arranged with perfect pre- 
cision beforehand; and yet the idea that the great 
mass of Christians have is about the same as though 



108 Bible Harmony. 

they thought that God had no plan at all — that it 
was simply a haphazard scramble between good and 
evil ; thus far the evil has had the best of it, but the 
good will triumph in the end ; that is to say, the 
good will not gain a full and perfect triumph, but it 
will at least come out ahead. In opposition to this 
God-dishonoring idea, the scriptures set forth the 
glorious truth that God has a plan, the plan of the 
ages, prearranged and perfected before the first step 
in the creation of man was taken ; a plan providing 
for every event and movement, and according to 
which every jot and tittle will be carried out. The 
programme of the creation has been written out by 
the Almighty, and every step in the process and the 
final outcome is infallibly settled. If the reader 
should think at this point that if this be so, what be- 
comes of man's free moral agency, I will ask him 
to let that question wait until a little later ; the 
present question is in regard to the plan of the ages. 

The elucidation of this subject involves the mys- 
teries of " the firstfruits," " the firstborn," the 
promised "seed," and the "one body." 

It is well known to every Bible student that Jesus 
Christ is the firstfruits (1 Cor. xv. 20) and the first- 
born from the dead (Col. i. 18). But it is not so 
generally noted that he is not the only first fruits. 
nor the only firstborn. "Of His own will begat he 
us by the word of truth that we should bo a kind 
of firstfruits of his creatures " (Jas. L 18; compare 
Rev. xiv. 4), and the gospel church is k *tlio church 
of the firstborn" (Hob. \ii. 23). But how ran 



Bible Harmony. 109 

there be two firstbrwte ? The answer to this is the 
mystery of the One Body and the one promised 
Seed. These mysteries involve the truths — first, 
that the elect gospel church is the body of Christ, he 
being the head — " we are members of his body, of 
his flesh, and of Ins bones " — and, second, that this 
One Body is the One Abrahamic Seed in whom all 
the families of the earth shall be blessed in "the 
ages to come." 

Paul fully sets forth these mysteries in his epistles. 
First see Gal. hi. 16, 29. In verse sixteen Paul 
emphasizes the fact that the Abrahamic seed is not 
many, but one — " He saith not, to seeds, as of many, 
but as of one, to thy seed" Then the apostle declares 
that this one promised seed of Abraham is Christ — 
not Isaac, but Christ ; then in verse twenty-nine he 
says, " And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's 
seed, and heirs according to the promise." Thus does 
it appear that although the seed is one, yet it includes 
many ; and this apparent paradox is explained by the 
mystery of the one body — " many members, but one 
body " (Rom. xii. 4, 5 ; see also 1 Cor. xii. 12-27 ; 
Eph. v. 30-32). Now it is through this class of first- 
fruits, composing the one body and the promised seed, 
that God will bless all the families of the earth in 
the ages to come. These are the " elect," who must 
first be perfected, and then, through them, God's 
work of perfecting the race in his own image will be 
accomplished. 

In plain language, without symbol or figure of 
speech, this mystery of the one body is as follows : 



110 Bible Harmony. 

Jesus of Nazareth alone is not the complete annointed 
Saviour. He is the first and chief of a class, embrac- 
ing " many sons " (Heb. ii. 10), and yet in such 
perfect unity and accord that they are spoken of as 
one, and they will be one when perfected in answer 
to the Saviour's prayer in John xvii., " that they all 
may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee ; 
that they may be one as we are one, perfect in one." 
And for what purpose ? " That the world may be- 
lieve," " that the world may know " ; that is to say, 
this unity will be for the blessing of the world, ac- 
cording to the promise to the Abrahamic seed. The 
above idea may seem very strange and erroneous to 
those who have not thought of it before ; but it can 
be fully substantiated by scripture, as I shall show. 
Some will be inclined to exclaim, " What ! is not 
Jesus a perfect Saviour? must something be added 
to him to make him complete ? " and they will be 
very loth to believe anything of the kind ; and 3-et 
there is scripture to prove exactly this point. We 
shall find such scripture in the last two verses of the 
first chapter of Ephesians, where we read that Christ 
is "head over all things to the church, which is his 
body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." 

The word rendered "fulness" is peculiar ; we have 
no single English word that will exactly express it ; 
it means in the original, "that by which a thing is 
Tilled; a filling up, completing : a ship's complement, 
i.e. her crew," etc. We have, however, a precise ex- 
planation of this word in two passages of scripture 
that is perfectly satisfactory, (See Matt. ix. 1(> and 



Bible Harmony. Ill 

Mark ii. 21.) " No man putteth a piece of new cloth 
into an old garment, for that which is put in to fill up 
taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse." 
In this passage all the words in italics are from the 
one word which in Eph. i. 23 is translated "fulness." 
Here we have, therefore, the exact meaning of this 
peculiar word, so that we need have no doubt about 
it; and if Paul knew what he was talking about, if 
he knew how to use words properly, we are to under- 
stand that the church, i.e. the body of true disciples 
in this gospel age, is " that which is put in to fill up " 
Christ, or to make him complete ; implying, of course, 
that he is not complete without the church. Here is 
a wonderful revelation. Most Christians know that 
we are only complete in him (Col. ii. 10) ; but few 
realize the fact that it is equally true that he is only 
complete in us, that the church is just as essential 
to Christ to make him complete as he is to the church 
to make it complete. This great truth is implied 
in the figure of the one body; all the members 
are mutually dependent upon and essential to one 
another, so that " the eye cannot say unto the hand, 
I have no need of thee ; nor again the head to the 
feet, I have no need of thee " ; thus are we taught 
that the head needs the members as much as the 
members need the head ; " and whether one member 
suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member 
be honored, all the members rejoice with it." Thus 
are the head and members intimately united and 
mutually needful. This was illustrated in the case 
of Saul of Tarsus ; when the Lord met him on the 



112 Bible Harmony. 

way to Damascus he exclaims, " Saul, Saul, why 
persecutest thou me ? " Saul never persecuted Jesus 
personally; but in persecuting his members he was 
persecuting him, for if one member suffers all the 
members suffer with it, and not less the head than 
any other member, but rather the more. It might 
be said that we were making too much of the figure 
to carry it out to such an extent as above if it were 
not for this last illustration, and especially the positive 
statement in Eph. i. 23, that the church is essential 
for the completion of Christ ; this surely is sufficient 
to make the truth plain and to warrant the position 
taken. This one body is first perfected ; then in it, 
in the ages to come, all the world are blessed and 
saved. 

A great mass of scripture confirms this view be- 
sides what we have already noticed. For example, 
in the Revelation there are two distinct companies of 
the saved ; the nrstfruits of chapter fourteen, a com- 
pany of a definite number, one hundred and forty-four 
thousand, and the "great multitude which no man 
could number " of chapter seven. 

Again, in the Old Testament, the last verse of the 
prophecy of Obadiah tells us that when the kingdom 
is the Lord's, which will be in the new heavens and 
new earth (compare Rev. xi. 15-18), then k ' saviours." 
not one, but many, shall come up on Mount /ion ami 
judge the Mount of Esau. 

This view is also confirmed by the types of the 
law. Under the law there were two firstfruits, and 
then the great ingathering. The law is a shadow of 



Bible Harmony. 113 

good things to come (Heb. x. 1), and we find this 
shadow agreeing with the substance as above ex- 
plained. There were three great feasts under the 
law, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles (Lev. 
xxiii.). A firstfruits was to be offered both at the 
Passover and at Pentecost ; these two feasts occurred 
in the early part of the ecclesiastical year, which 
began in the spring. Tabernacles came in the fall of 
the year, when the general harvest was gathered in. 
We know that Christ is the antitype of the paschal 
firstfruits. " Christ our passover is crucified for us " 
(1 Cor. v. 7, 8). The paschal firstfruits was a single 
sheaf of wheat, and was to be waved before the Lord 
" on the morrow after the Sabbath," accompanied, for 
a burnt offering, by a single male lamb without blem- 
ish. Christ is the antitype. He rose from the dead 
" the firstfruits of them that slept " (1 Cor. xv.), on 
the morrow after the Sabbath (Mark xvi. 1), and he 
is the " lamb without blemish and without spot " 
(1 Pet. i. 19). Thus Christ our passover was cruci- 
fied for us. Fifty days after Passover came Pente- 
cost, and we know that the church fulfils this type ; 
on that day the church received the " gift of the holy 
spirit," " which is the earnest of our inheritance until 
the redemption of the purchased possession." Thus 
both Christ and the church are firstfruits. Christ is 
" the first of the firstfruits " (Ex. xxiii. 19), and 
the church also is " a kind of firstfruits " ( Jas. i. 
18), " the firstfruits unto God and the Lamb " (Rev. 
xiv. 4). 

Thus Passover and Pentecost are fulfilled in Christ 



114 Bible Harmony. 

and the church ; these are the two firstfruits ; does 
that include all the saved? Where would be the 
significance of calling them firstixnits if no other 
fruits were to follow? and where would be the anti- 
type of the third great feast at the close of the year, 
— the feast of Tabernacles, or of ingathering? Pass- 
over and Pentecost prefigure Christ and the church 
the firstfruits ; does not Tabernacles beautifully and 
grandly prefigure the " times of the restitution of all 
things " (Acts iii. 21), when, in "the ages to come," 
God will show forth " by the church " " the exceed- 
ing riches of his grace " ? 

There is one other figure used to set forth this 
great truth of the one body, and of the firstfruits. 
viz. that which represents Christ and the church as 
husband and wife. He is the bridegroom ; the church 
is espoused to him (just as God's ancient people were 
espoused to him; e.g. Ezek. xvi.) as a chaste virgin 
(2 Cor. xi. 2) ; and " they twain are one flesh. This 
is a great mystery ; but I speak concerning Christ 
and the church " (Eph. v. 22-32). Now notice that 
this bride of Christ glorified is represented by the 
New Jerusalem coming down from God, out of 
heaven (Rev. xxi. 1-10), and this Jerusalem, which 
is now above, is "the mother of us all " (Gal. iv. 26), 
Is the mother alone to be redeemed? Are there not 
to be children, "a great multitude which no man 
could number"? Read the fifty-fourth chapter of 
Isaiah, and see what the Lord has to say in answer 
to this question. 

Furthermore, the plan of the ages explains the 



Bible Harmony. 115 

"high calling" which Paul was so anxious to obtain. 
In the third chapter of his epistle to the Philippians 
the apostle fully sets forth this point, representing 
himself as making the most strenuous efforts, " count- 
ing all things hut loss," and bending 1 all his energies 
to " this one thing " ; namely, " the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus." How perfectly 
plain is all this in the light of the plan ! The high 
calling is of the firstfruits, who "have part in the 
first resurrection " (Rev. xx. 6) ; who are to be kings, 
and priests, and judges, and saviours in the ages to 
come. These are the "very elect," the overcomers, 
the "little flock" to whom it is the Father's good 
pleasure to give the kingdom (Luke xii. 32). These 
are they, also, who build on Christ with gold, silver, 
and precious stones, and receive a " reward " over and 
above mere salvation ; for those who build on Christ 
with wood, hay, and stubble are saved, "yet so as by 
fire" (1 Cor. iii. 11-15). This high calling, again, 
is the special salvation referred to in 1 Tim. iv. 10, 
in contradistinction to the common salvation which 
Jude speaks of (Jude 3). 

This same plan of the ages makes clear also that 
most perplexing Bible doctrine of Election. No 
one at all familiar with the Bible will deny but that 
it teaches election of some sort, and that, too, in a 
very positive and decided manner ; so that the Chris- 
tian church is about equally divided on this question, 
one side believing with Calvin in the eternal decrees, 
election and reprobation, etc., and the other side, 
with Arminius, denying the Calvinistic view; and 



116 Bible Harmony, 

yet they have great difficulty to explain according to 
their theory of "free salvation" the positive scripture 
upon which Calvinism is founded ; e.g. Rom. viii. 
28-30. But in the light of this wondrous plan of 
the ages this whole vexed question is settled at once. 
God's dealings with mankind have been on the line 
of election from the creation down to the present 
time ; at any rate, if we go no further back than the 
call of Abraham we are sure that this has been his 
rule. Was not Israel an elect people? We know 
that both the Old Testament and the New are full of 
this idea; so the gospel church are no less elected. 
Christ, its head, was elected (Isa. xlii. 1) ; so were its 
founders, the twelve apostles (John xv. 16) ; so those 
gathered into the early church (Acts ii. 39, 47 ; xiii. 
48) ; most of the epistles are directed to the elect, 
who were " chosen in Christ before the foundation of 
the world," and all through this gospel age this same 
election obtains. We can see it, for instance, geo- 
graphically. Why did the gospel rise in Palestine 
and travel northward and westward through those 
countries inhabited by the Caucasian race as it lias, 
even down to the present day, while by far the larger 
part of the earth's population, lying to the eastward 
and southward of Palestine, were left for centuries in 
total darkness, and even at the present day have com- 
paratively but the merest glimmering of gospel light ? 
Was this accident? What Christian can believe it. 
when we know that "He that sitteth in the heavens" 
"worketh all things after the counsel of his own 
will"? And is not this election? Are not the souls 



Bible Harmony. 117 

of the Mongolian and African races as precious as 
ours ? Are they not as dear to the great Father of 
all? And yet they are left in darkness, and light 
is given to us. 

The plan of the ages explains all. The firsthwits 
are elected; this is a chosen company; and in connec- 
tion with this elect body, all those scriptures belong 
that treat upon election. But in the ages to come, 
the times of the restitution of all things, the freest 
and fullest grace will obtain ; all shall know the Lord 
— " the knowledge of God shall cover the earth 
as the waters cover the sea " ; and in those ages of 
glory and universal blessing, there is ample room for 
that large class of broad and generous scriptures 
(see the chapter next to the last) that speaks of the 
full and absolute triumph of truth, and life, and love. 
Rightly divide the Word, according to the plan of the 
ages, putting election where it belongs, and free grace 
where it belongs, and all is clear and plain. Election 
does not, as is commonly supposed, necessarily imply 
reprobation, — the election of a few and the condem- 
nation of all the rest, — but the few elected ones are 
to be the channel through which God is to bless all 
the rest : as God said to Abraham, " I will bless thee, 
and thou shalt be a blessing ; and in thee shall all the 
families of the earth be blessed." This is Bible 
election, — not elected simply to be blessed, but to be 
a blessing ; so Peter puts it — " not rendering evil for 
evil or railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing, 
knowing that thereunto are ye called that ye might 
inherit a blessing." The true elect of God are called 



118 Bible Harmony. 

to be a blessing to others, and thereby are they most 
highly blessed. Thus this doctrine, in the light of the 
plan of the ages, is not the monstrously unjust thing 
that ultra Calvinists would make it; but it is a glorious 
doctrine of mercy, and wisdom, and love, manifested 
toward every son and daughter of the race. 

We will now consider Rom. viii. 19-23. 

" The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth 
for the revealing of the sons of God. For the cre- 
ation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, 
but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that 
the creation itself also shall be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory 
of the children of God. For we know that the whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together 
until now ; and not only so, but ourselves also, which 
have the nrstfruits of the spirit ; even we ourselves 
groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption 
[or rather sonshijp'] ; to wit, the redemption of our 
body." 

Here is the entire plan of the ages in epitome. 
Let the reader consider first how utterly irreconcil- 
able is the above scripture with orthodoxism. 

First, the whole creation 1 is represented as waiting 

1 Some commentators have been so hard pressed to make this 
passage, harmonize with the current creeds that they have advanced 
the view that the term creature, or rather creation, refers to the 
material and brute creation. But this idea is manifestly only a 
makeshift, and is unreasonable and absurd en the face of it ; for. 
first, sec the use of this word in the following passages: Murk \. 
(I ; \vi. 15; 2 Cor. v. 17; (ial. vi. 1 5 ; Col. i. 1 5 : Kev. iii. 11; 

from these it appears thai the word means mankind, the human 



Bible Harmony. 119 

with earnest expectation, even with groaning and 
travailing together in pain, for a certain thing, viz. 
the revealing of the sons of God ; it does not say the 
Son of God; if it did it could be reconciled with 
the common view ; but it is the sons of God ; who 
are these sons of God for whom the whole creation 
waits with such intense longing ? Then we are told 
that the creation Avas made subject to vanity, i.e. 
this fallen state, not of its own will, but by the will 
of Him who hath subjected the same in hope, i.e. 
by the will of God. Here is a most startling state- 
ment. What ! was it by the will of God that man 
fell ? So is it plainly implied in this scripture. If you 
wish to know the significance of the term vanity, 
read the book of Ecclesiastes ; that book is a full 
commentary on the enjoyments, emoluments, honors, 
follies, and weaknesses of this present life, which it 
declares to be vanity — " vanity of vanities, all is 
vanity." But why did God do such a strange thing 
as make the creation subject to vanity, this fallen state, 
this bondage of corruption ? Why, in hope that it 
should be delivered therefrom into the liberty of the 
glory of the children of God, — a hope that will doubt- 
less be realized, for God's hope amounts to a certainty. 
Then the apostle goes on to state that not only is 
the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain 

race. Furthermore, how could it be said of the material or brute 
creation that God subjected it to vanity in hope that it should be 
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the 
glory of the children of God ? and with what propriety could the 
material or brute creation be contrasted, as in verse 23, with " our- 
selves which have the firstl ruits of the spirit 1 ' ? 



120 Bible Harmony. 

in this earnest waiting attitude, but we ourselves, 
who have the firstfruits of the spirit, we likewise 
are waiting with the same intensity of desire ; but, 
strange to say, we are not waiting for the same thing 
that the creation waits for; the creation waits for 
the revealing of the sons of God ; we wait for our 
sonship, to wit, the redemption of our body ; not the 
redemption of our bodies (plural), but our body. Has 
orthodoxism any explanation for this strange condi- 
tion of things? is there any room in the current 
creeds for this strange teaching ? Not a particle ; 
the common theology can make nothing but a jumble 
and a muddle of this glorious scripture ; or else 
candidly acknowledge (which is the more honest 
course) that it is not understood, and cannot be sat- 
isfactorily explained, i.e. in accordance with the cur- 
rent creeds. Let the reader look into the standard 
commentaries, and see for himself if this is not a 
true statement of the case. Says Adam Clark : 
" There is considerable difficulty in this passage. 
Dissertations without end have been written upon 
it ; and it does not appear that the Christian world 
are come to any general agreement on the subject." 
Says Albert Barnes: "Perhaps there is not a passage 
in the New Testament that has been doomed more 
difficult of interpretation than this: and after all the 
labors bestowed upon it by critics, still there is no 
explanation proposed that is perfectly satisfactory, 
or in which commentators concur." Such is the 
aspect of the question concerning this passage from 
the standpoint of orthodoxism. 



Bible Harmony. 121 

But, on the other hand, the reader cannot have 
failed to notice, even while we have been consider- 
ing this scripture thus far, how perfectly it is in 
accord with the plan of the ages as already enun- 
ciated. 

The sons of God are the same , as those who com- 
pose the one body and the promised seed, the first- 
fruits, or those " having the firstfruits oi the spirit," 
as it is expressed in this scripture ; for the revealing 
of these sons of God the whole creation waits, because 
until the ^?\s£fruits are gathered, the general harvest 
must remain unhoused, so to speak ; the seed must 
be perfected before the work of blessing all the 
families of the earth in that seed can begin ; hence 
it is perfectly plain why the whole creation waits for 
the revealing of these sons. We have seen also in 
the foregoing how the fall is a part of the plan, 
and is " of God " just as much as the redemption ; 
according to God's " plan of the ages," it is perfectly 
intelligible Avhy he should make the creation subject 
to vanity, and the certainty of the hope is made fully 
apparent, — the whole creation shall be delivered, 
there is no manner of doubt about it. It is also 
beautifully clear according to the " plan " why " we 
that have the firstfruits of the spirit " should be 
waiting, — with equal intensity of longing — but for 
something entirely different from what the creation 
waits for. We wait for the sonship, to wit, the 
redemption of our body; i.e. we wait for the first 
resurrection whereby we may become the sons of 
God (Luke xx. 36 ; compare Rom. i. 3, 4), and the 



122 Bible Harmony. 

mystical body (of which Christ is the head and " they 
that are Christ's " are the members) be made com- 
plete ; which body is the promised seed in whom all 
the families of the earth are to be blessed. The crea- 
tion, of course, waits for the revealing of these sons, 
since they cannot be blessed until the seed is perfected. 

Is not all this perfect harmony ? and does it not 
demonstrate the correctness of the foregoing exposi- 
tion? and does it not open up a glorious future in 
the development of God's plan, and the blessing of 
the race ? and furthermore, does it not vindicate the 
wisdom and righteousness of God? for although he 
made the creation subject to vanity, by his own will 
(as he "worketh all things after the counsel of his 
own will," Eph. i. 11), yet it was done in hope ; a 
hope " sure and steadfast " (Heb. vi. 19) ; and full pro- 
vision has been made (the " plan of the ages ") 
whereby the whole creation shall be delivered from 
the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the 
glory of the children of God ; and thus shall the 
divine oath be realized. " As truly as I live, saith 
the Lord, all the earth shall be filled with my glory " 
(Num. xiv. 21). 

It remains to speak briefly of the manner in which 
this new heavens and new earth will bo brought 
about. Much has been said already in the first sec- 
tion of this chapter upon this point. The reader will 
have noticed that the views set forth imply the pie- 
millennial coming of Christ. This is the positive 
teaching of scripture; by many lines of Bible argu- 
ment is it proved that there will he no millennium of 



Bible Harmony. 123 

universal peace and righteousness before the coming 
of Christ ; on the contrary, we are taught that evil 
and sin will continue to hold sway and to increase up 
to the end of the present dispensation, and its clos- 
ing scenes will be amid awful judgments and retribu- 
tions, as has been the case with every preceding age 
(e.g. 1 Tim. iv. 1-3 ; 2 Tim. iii. 1-13 ; 2 Thess. ii. 
1-8). One of the strongest passages to prove this 
point we have already noticed; that is Jas. v. 1-9. 
In this scripture we are most positively taught that 
we are to look for no great improvement in the cor- 
rupt and wicked condition of things around us until 
" the coming of the Lord " ; we must wait patiently 
for this grand event before we can expect deliver- 
ance. 

Christ shall come then, " this same Jesus " (Acts 
i. 11), and first the promised seed shall be perfected; 
" like a thief " shall he come to take his bride, that 
they may be " forever with the Lord." Then shall 
be " set up " (Dan. ii. 44) the Lord's kingdom, and 
the dominion shall be given to Christ and his saints 
(see last part of Dan. vii.), and these, as a " stone cut 
out of the mountain without hands " (Dan. ii.), shall 
break in pieces and destroy all the wicked govern- 
ments of earth (Psa. cxlix.), and the " whole earth is 
at rest and is quiet " ; and then shall be inaugurated 
that glorious condition of things which shall result 
in all knowing the Lord. We have already quite 
fully considered this point in the preceding chapter ; 
and we have considered it still further in the pages 
following, especially in the chapter on Probation and 
Judgment. 



124 Bible Harmony. 

I would add, before advancing to another chapter, 
that this chapter and the one preceding, on the 
Worlds and the Ages, and God's Work and Plan, are 
perhaps the most important in the book; and I would 
recommend to the reader that he have these subjects 
well in mind before proceeding. If he will go back 
and read these two chapters over again I think he 
will be well repaid. 



CHAPTER V. 

"WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? " 

Having considered the framework of the worlds 
and the ages, the work God is carrying out upon that 
framework, and the plan according to which that 
work is being wrought, we come now to study the 
nature and character of the principal personage in 
that plan, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The study of Jesus is the one all-important study 
of the Word. He is the Word ; and we are to en- 
deavor, according to the " wisdom that the holy spirit 
teacheth," to interpret that living Word. Questions, 
numberless, and most momentous, crowd upon us 
as we turn to this most wonderful personage, this 
unique and supernatural character. " What think 
ye of Christ; whose Son is he? " How did he enter 
into this world, and for what purpose ? why did he 
die ? what is the significance of " his resurrection " 
(Phil. iii. 10) ? how did he make an atonement? etc. 
Standing at the confluence of the ages, four thou- 
sand years after the creation of man, he appears in 
awe-inspiring grandeur, a lone, solitary figure, unpar- 
alleled and unapproached by any other being since 
the world began. Who is he ? no wonder they asked 
questions about him. " We would see Jesus " (John 

125 



126 Bible Harmony. 

xii. 21). What shall we do with him ? (Matt, xxvii. 
22). The apostle says, " We see Jesus." Where? 
Not now, as of old, among the Judsean hills, and along 
the Galilsean shores, but in " the scriptures of truth," 
and in the lives of his followers. We are to look for 
him now in the scriptures ; may we look for him 
with such a spirit that we shall find him, and be able 
to say, " We see Jesus." 

In the following suggestions in regard to the doc- 
trines of Christ, I wish the reader to understand that 
I do not write in a controversial or dogmatic spirit. I 
do not expect so much to present the exact and ab- 
solute truth on the points considered, as to suggest 
lines of thought that, more or less directly, will lead 
to the truth. I do not expect the reader to agree 
with me in every point ; but I trust that non-agree- 
ment in matters of Bible interpretation will not pre- 
vent that " unity of spirit " (Eph. iv. 3) which will 
enable us to " labor together " in an honest search for 
the truth. If some of my readers are helped by my 
efforts into the right way of thinking, I shall be better 
satisfied than as though they accepted all my thoughts 
as right, for I am not at all sure that they are all 
right ; for now we see through a glass darkly, and 
know only in part. I simply lay before the reader 
these great subjects as I apprehend them. 

There are some subjects that we must touch upon 
very briefly, and others that we will notice more at 
length. We begin with the 



Bible Harmony. 127 



PRE-EXISTENCE. 

I understand that the Bible plainly teaches that 
Christ pre-existed as the Word before his incarna- 
tion as the Son ; that he was with God " in the be- 
ginning," when God said, " Let us make man in our 
image." All we know of Christ in this pre-incarnate 
state, as the divine " Logos," is dim and obscure ; but 
that he really had such an existence seems to me plain 
and positive. Such passages as the following seem 
to me to favor his pre-existence (John i. 1, 2 ; vi. 62 ; 
viii. 58 ; xvii. 5 ; 2 Cor. viii. 9 ; Col. i. 17). I do not 
present these isolated passages as proof, however, for 
it seems to me a very unsatisfactory way to prove a 
doctrine. Every one of the above scriptures can be 
explained in harmony with the opposite view ; it 
is not upon isolated texts that a doctrine should 
be founded, but upon the harmony of scripture as 
a whole. It is because the doctrine of the pre- 
existence makes such harmony that I believe it, as I 
will try and show. 

I do not believe that Jesus Christ is the " eternal 
Son of God," simply because that phrase is self-con- 
tradictory and hence meaningless ; to talk of an 
" eternal son " is as senseless as it would be to speak 
of a round square, or a straight curve, or a full 
vacuum; the terms of the expression are mutually 
destructive, and hence it means nothing. In his 
pre-existent state we know Jesus simply as "the 
Word," having a personal existence, for reasons that 
we will notice further on; but he did not actually 



128 Bible Harmony. 

become the Son until his incarnation; of this also 
we will give the proof anon. Briefly, then, to sum 
up : the Bible teaches that Jesus had a personal pre- 
existence as the Word, and that he became the Son 
of God when he became the Son of man, — at his 
incarnation. 

THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

The simple Bible statement is, " The Word was 
made flesh and dwelt among us." Before his incar- 
nation he was simply the Word. At his concep- 
tion he became the Son of God by creation, as was 
Adam (Luke iii. 38). At his birth he became the 
Son of man. At his resurrection he became "the 
Son of God with power (i.e. in the full, spiritual 
sense), according to the spirit of holiness, by the 
resurrection from the dead" (Rom. i. 4). We will 
notice these points in detail. 

It seems very positive that the pre-incarnate appel- 
lation of Christ is the Word ; but was he not also 
the Son of God? I think not, and for this reason. 
When the angel announced to Mary the birth of 
Christ, and she asks, "How shall this be?"' the angel 
answered, " The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, 
and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee ; 
therefore that holy thing which shall be born of 
thee, shall be called a Son of God." The definite 
article, " the," is not in the original, but is put 
in, without authority, by the translators o\' both the 
old and the new version, apparently to support the 
doctrine of the deity of Christ, as we will notice 



Bible Harmony. 129 

further on ; it should read as above, " a Son of God." 
Christ is " the firstborn among many brethren " 
(Rom. viii. 29). He is one among "many sons" 
(Heb. ii. 10). Now notice the force of the "there- 
fore " in the above passage. Read the text over 
again and you will see that the meaning is that 
because Christ was brought forth by "the power of 
the Highest," " not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God " ; and under 
the overshadowing influence of the Holy Spirit, there- 
fore and thereby he became a Son of God ; this plainly 
implies that before he was thus brought forth, he was 
not (in this sense at least) a Son of God ; that is, as 
we might express it, he was not a human Son of God 
(as Adam was a human son of God by creation) : 
if the manner of his incarnation was the cause of his 
becoming a human Son of God, as is clearly taught 
in this passage, then of course he was not a Son of 
God in this sense before his incarnation. " What was 
he then before his incarnation ?-" some one asks ; I 
do not know, I reply ; it is not revealed any further 
than that he was the divine Logos, possessing un- 
speakable " glory " (John xvii. 5) and unbounded 
"riches" (2 Cor. viii. 9), and "in the form of God" 
(Phil. ii. 6.) ; we cannot tell the import of these 
declarations in regard to the pre-existent Word ; they 
stand as the merest hints of the mysterious fellow- 
ship between God and the Word before the world 
was, a description of which we seem to have in 
Prov. viii. Out of the wondrous depths of that 
glory that he had with the Father before the world 



130 Bible Harmony. 

was, which glory was God himself (John xvii. 5), 
the Word comes, is made flesh, and dwells among 
us ; then, and not till then, " we behold his glory," 
we come to know him, and through him to know 
God, and thus to obtain eternal life (John xvii. 3). 
We pass on now to notice another question. How 
was the Word made flesh ? I reply, by the creative 
power of God and by natural generation. Adam 
was created an adult, in full possession of all the 
faculties and functions of mature manhood ; but 
Christ was created in embryo, a mere life germ in 
the womb of Mary, and then generated and brought 
into the world in the natural way. In proof of this 
see the passage we have already noted in Luke i. 
Mary, on being told that she should bring forth a 
child, asks, " How shall this be, seeing I know not 
a man?" The answer is, "The Holy Spirit shall 
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall 
overshadow thee, therefore," etc. Now turn to the 
first account of the creation, and we read that "the 
spirit of God moved upon (brooded over or 'over- 
shadowed') the face of the waters" and the outcome is 
the creation there set forth in mystic prophecy. The 
spirit of God here stands for the power of God (com- 
pare Matt. xii. 28 with Luke xi. 20; also Acts i. 8) : 
it was by God's creative power that the first Adam 
came into being, and he was, therefore, a son of God; 
so Christ by the same power was created in embryo, 
and so became a Son of God : of course there can be 
no question on the score of ability: if God could 
create the adult man he could create the Life germ: 



Bible Harmony. 131 

this view does away with the absurd Popish dogma 
of the so-called "Immaculate Conception." The 
simple fact is that in the birth of Christ the creative 
power of God was substituted for the pro-creative 
function of the male ; while the process of gestation 
belonging to the female was carried on as in every 
natural birth. This view explains also how Christ 
is both Son of God and Son of man, — how he 
is "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh"; and 
yet he is the beginning of a new beginning that 
was to culminate in " the New Man." Had he been 
wholly the product of God's creative power he would 
not have been of our race at all, but of another human 
race. Had he been begotten " by the will of man " 
and "born of a woman," he would have been no 
different from the rest of the fallen race ; but simply 
"altogether such an one as ourselves," and the be- 
ginning of no new order of things or " new crea- 
tion." But being the joint product of God's crea- 
tive power and of natural generation, he is at the 
same time Son of God and Son of man, a veritable 
member of the fallen human race, and yet the begin- 
ning of a new creation ; so that we can say with the 
prophet, " Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is 
given'''' (Isa. ix. 6). O wonderful mystery! Jesus 
is Emmanuel, God with us, and yet he was " made 
like unto his brethren in all things." He is "God 
manifest in the flesh " ; human and yet divine ; divine 
and yet human. 



132 Bible Harmony. 

THE SACRIFICE AND DEATH OF CHRIST. 

The common idea is that the sacrifice and death of 
Christ was his life of self-denial and suffering while 
here on earth and his cruel death on the cross. But 
neither of these were the real sacrifice he made, nor 
the real death he suffered ; these were a part of his 
sufferings, and the believer shares in them, filling up 
the measure (Col. i. 24), that he may " also reign 
with him." So far as these deprivations and physical 
sufferings were concerned, it would be hard to say 
how Christ sacrificed or suffered any more than many 
a martyr ; indeed, such a view of Christ's sacrifice 
and death falls far short of the truth and really 
belittles both. Paul clearly sets forth Christ's sacri- 
fice in 2 Cor. viii. 9, — " Ye know the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for 
your sakes he became poor, that ye through his 
poverty be rich." This passage, it seems to me. 
clearly teaches the pre-existence of Christ, and fully 
sets forth the sacrifice he made. It would certainly 
be difficult to tell when Christ was rich unless we go 
back of his incarnation to " his riches in glory " : 
those riches he laid, down and became poor that we, 
through his poverty, might become rich, and here 
was the sacrifice he made. With this view in mind 
we can understand the Saviour's words in John x. 17, 
18: "Therefore doth my Father love me because 1 
lay down my life that I might take it again. No 
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down o\ myself. 

I have power to Lay it down, and I have power to take 



Bible Harmony 133 

it again.*' What life is Jesus talking about here ? 
his earth life, most Christians would say. But there 
is nothing in scripture to show that Christ laid down 
his physical life in any sense different from what any 
martyr might be said to have laid down their life. 
To be sure, he voluntarily consented to die; but 
many a martyr has done the same ; Paul, for 
instance, when he spake from a Roman diu^eon in 
momentary expectation of martyrdom, "I am now 
ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is 
at hand." Christ was " put to death," " cut off out 
of the land of the living," as thousands have been 
before and since. Moreover, we are sure that he did 
not himself take up his physical life, for we are 
repeatedly told that God raised him from the dead. 
Christ had no more power to raise himself than any 
human being has. We have positive proof of this in 
1 Cor. vi. 14. " God hath both raised up the Lord, 
and will also raise up us by his own power." Thus 
does it appear, that Christ neither laid down his 
natural life in any special sense, nor did he take it 
again : and yet he says, " I lay down my life of 
myself. I have power to lay it down and I have 
power to take it again." What life ? we ask again ; 
not his natural life, but his pre-existent life that he 
had before he entered into man's fallen estate. This 
was the life he laid down, and this was the life he 
took again after that "God raised him from the 
dead." This view is fully confirmed by a correct 
translation of the passage we are considering. Ac- 
cording to the margin of the new version the passage 



134 Bible Harmony. 

should read, " I lay down my life of myself ; no man 
took it away," etc. According to this rendering the 
life that Jesus was talking about was one that he had 
already laid down. The Sinaitic and Vatican MSS., 
two of the best authorities, confirm this view by ren- 
dering the passage, " No man hath taken it from me,'' 
etc. Thus it appears very certain that the life Jesus 
laid dMKn was his pre-existent life, — - a life he had 
already sacrificed, a life fully in his own power to 
lay down and to take up according to the " command- 
ment " of his Father. 

Having thus determined the real sacrifice that Jesus 
made, and the life that he laid down, we are prepared 
to understand the death he suffered. When the Word 
left the glory and riches of his pre-existent state, and 
"was made flesh," what sort of a condition did he 
enter into ? Was it another life ? No ; it was death. 
When the Word was made flesh, he entered into a 
condition of death, and remained dead (in this sense) 
during his entire earth-life ; hence, the death he 
suffered was thirty-three and a half years long ; even 
all the time he tabernacled in the flesh. This is as 
it should be; Christ laid down his life — his pre- 
existent life — and in so doing he entered, not into 
another life, but into death; by a human birth he 
was made a partaker of fallen human nature, that by 
a divine birth, we might be made k * partakers of the 
divine nature." He entered fully into the condition 
of fallen man, even SO far as to be "made sin " and 
wt made a curse " ; lie was made in all points like unto 
his brethren, except that be did no sin. Now, then, 



Bible Harmony. 135 

this fallen condition of man is a condition of death ; 
what the scriptures call " the animal man " (1 Cor. 
ii. 14) is in a condition of death ; from a Bible stand- 
point he is dead. The Bible definition of death is, 
" to be carnally minded " (Rom. viii. 6, 7) ; this is the 
condition of all that are " in the flesh." Says Christ 
to the Jews, " Except ye eat my flesh and drink my 
blood, ye have no life in you" (John vi. 53). They 
might have replied, " Why, we have some life in us ; 
we are at least alive physically." But no, ye have no 
life in you — not a particle of that which the scrip- 
tures recognize as life. When one said to him, I will 
follow thee, but let me first go and bury my father, he 
replied, " Let the dead bury their own dead " ; those 
who bore the bier were not less dead, in this Bible 
sense, than the corpse that lay upon it. All the life 
that even the Christian has now is by faith ; says 
Paul, " The life that I now live, I live by the faith 
of the Son of God " ; and to the Colossians he says, 
" Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." 
This is an important point, and is worthy of a full 
consideration. I refer to it now in order that each 
may understand the real death that Jesus suffered — 
not the few hours of agony on Calvary, or the three 
days' " sleep " in Joseph's tomb ; but the thirty-three 
years and a half of his sojourn among the lost and 
dead. From the manger and swaddling clothes of his 
infancy, to the cross and linen winding-sheet of his 
passion, it was one long experience of death; — the 
same dark and terrible charnel house as that which 
imprisons fallen man. We cannot imagine the un- 



136 Bible Harmony. 

speakable horror of such, a death to Christ, for ive 
never knew what life is. But coming as he did 
from " the bosom of the Father " into this dark pit 
of corruption, his life-long death (if I may use such, 
a paradoxical expression) must have been terrible be- 
yond all human expression or comprehension. This 
was a sacrifice, and this was a death worthy of the Son 
of God. The ordinary view reduces the sacrifice and 
death of Christ to very meagre and commonplace pro- 
portions ; according to this view he was simply a relig- 
ious martyr, like thousands of others who have suffered 
and died for their religion. But if the sacrifice and 
death of Christ was as explained above, then he 
stands in this respect, as in all others, alone and un- 
approachable by any other being. He made a sac- 
rifice that no other being could make. He suffered a 
death that only one endowed with his life could die. 
There is another consideration that still further 
confirms the above view; it is drawn from the law: 
it is to the effect that Christ's death on the cross 
could not have been his sacrificial death, because 
legally and antitypically it was simply the fulfilment 
of the law in regard to the disposal of the dead 
carcass of the sin-offering, after the sacrifice was 
made. We know that the law is a k * shadow of good 
things to come," and that every jot and tittle of it 
must be fulfilled. Now under the law, an animal 
that was offered as a sin-offering was to be slain 
before the door of tin 1 tabernacle, and its Mood poured 
oui at the Pool of the altar, and thus was the sacrifice 
to be made. But the dead carcass oi the sin-offering, 



Bible Harmony. 137 

as an unclean thing, was to be carried off " without 
the camp " and burned with fire (Ex. xxix. 14 ; 
Lev. iv. 11, 12 ; xvi. 27). Christ's death on the 
cross was the fulfilment of this latter type ; namely, 
the burning of the dead carcass of the sin-offering 
" without the camp." This may seem to some who 
have not thought of it before, a very strange applica- 
tion of the type ; but there is no doubt but that it is 
correct, because just exactly this application is made 
in Heb. xiii. 10-14. It will be seen from this passage 
that the death of Christ on the cross "without the 
gate," was in fulfilment of that part of the type of 
the sin-offering that pertained to the disposal of the 
dead body " without the camp," after that it had 
been slain and its blood poured out to make an atone- 
ment. Thus does it appear that the sacrificial death 
of Christ was not his death on the cross, but previous 
to that, since his death on the cross was the antitype 
of the disposal of the already dead carcass of the sin- 
offering ; and thus does it appear, also, that Christ 
was in a condition of death while here in the flesh. 
This is decisive, unless this testimony in Hebrews 
is entirely rejected; by this testimony it certainly 
appears that we must go back of Christ's physical 
death on the cross to find his real sacrificial death. 

We will now consider still another confirmation of 
this view. Paul says of Christ that " God raised him 
from the dead now no more to return to corruption." 
Notice in this passage how we are taught that Jesus 
was in a corruptible state, but that God raised him 
from that condition no more to return thereto. But 



138 Bible Harmony. 

when was Jesus in this corruptible condition? Not 
while he was in the grave, for we are expressly told 
that while there he "saw no corruption" (Acts xiii. 
37) ; and yet he was in a corruptible condition some- 
time during his earth life, for he was raised therefrom 
now no more to return thereto. The foregoing view 
of his sacrifice and death answers this question. He 
was in the corruptible condition all the while he 
tabernacled in the flesh; he was in "the bondage of 
corruption," like " the whole creation," for he was 
made sin and a curse for us ; this was the corruption 
in which he was involved and out of which he was 
raised ; and this was the death out of which God saved 
him according to Heb. v. 7, 8; new version, margin. 

We will notice one more incidental confirmation of 
the position we have taken. Read Isa. liii. 9. and 
notice the margin on the word death, that it is 
plural. " He made his grave with the wicked and 
with the rich in his deaths" Why, did Christ die 
more than one death? Yes; we have seen that he 
entered a condition of death, that is, he died, when 
he was "made flesh"; he also suffered death on the 
cross. Now the passage exactly fits these two deaths; 
and with only his physical death in mind, it would 
be very hard to reconcile the language of this passage 
with the facts in the case. Christ did not make his 
grave " with the wicked" in his physical death; ho 
was placed in a new tomb wherein never man had 
yet laid ; and this tomb belonged to Joseph of 
Arimathea, who was "a good man anil a just," "who 
also himself waited for the kiimdom." and was one 



Bible Harmony. 139 

of " Jesus' disciples " ; and yet lie made his grave 
with the wicked and with the rich in his deaths." 
How clear this passage is in the light of the truth ! 
When Christ laid down his pre-existent life and 
entered into the charnel house of this fallen state, 
"he made his grave with the wicked," i.e. with fallen 
man; and when he died physically, he was laid in 
the tomb of the wealthy Arimathean, and thus made 
his grave with the rich. 

I have thus given what I believe to be the Bible 
doctrine of Christ's sacrifice and death ; and it will 
be seen that this Bible view necessarily involves the 
pre-existence of Christ. As I have discussed this 
point with special reference to a class of Christians 
who deny the pre-existence, I will now endeavor to 
sum up the evidence. 

SUMMARY. 

We have seen that there are a number of passages 
of scripture that seem to prove the pre-existence ; 
but, as already intimated, these single passages may 
be reconciled, in one way and another, with almost 
any other theory that might be adopted ; but we have 
seen how thoroughly the pre-existence is sustained 
by other considerations, growing out of the harmony 
of scripture and its incidental support; this, to my 
mind, is much more satisfactory evidence than isolated 
passages of scripture. 

We have seen that the real sacrifice and death of 
Christ was when he gave up the glory which he had 
with the Father before the world was, and entered 



140 Bible Harmony. 

the condition of fallen man. This view seems to be 
demanded by the rare and unparalleled character 
of the event ; the ordinary view belittles the whole 
affair, making the sacrifice and death of Christ sim- 
ply one among thousands of such events ; whereas 
the true view exalts and signalizes the event, so that 
it stands out, alone and unapproachable, in the history 
of the world — the great sacrifice, and the one death, 
that could bring about the atonement (at-one-ment). 
But besides these considerations, we have strong scrip- 
tural evidence to establish the view advanced. We 
find that whatever life it was that was sacrificed, it 
was one over which Christ had complete control, 
to lay it down and to take it up at will. Such con- 
trol we have seen he did not have over his physical 
life : in no special sense did he lay down his physical 
life ; and we are expressly told that God raised him 
from the dead by his own power, just as he will 
"raise us up." It could not have been, therefore, 
his physical life that Christ referred to as haying 
power to lay down and take up. This conclusion 
is very strongly confirmed by the correct rendering 
of the passage, "I lay down my life of myself: no 
man took [or hath taken] it from me." Thus the 
life Christ referred to was one that he had already 
laid down, previous to the time of speaking. Those 
who deny the pre-existence would have great diffi- 
culty in explaining what life it was that Jesus laid 
down of himself and took up again (as it is certain 
lie (lid not Lay down nor take up his physical life): and 
why the verb should In 1 ill the past tense. We knew 



Bible Harmony. 141 

from scripture that this fallen state of sin is a condi- 
tion of death; hence when Christ entered into it, he 
entered into death — he died; that he did enter into it 
is evident from the fact that he was made in all points 
like unto his brethren, even to being made sin and a 
curse, though he did no sin. Thus at his incarnation 
he made a great sacrifice and entered death, and this 
was the sacrifice and the death of the atonement. 

We know also from the law that Christ was in a 
condition of death while here on earth, and that his 
death on the cross was not his sacrificial death. He 
represented while in the flesh the dead carcass of the 
sin-offering, and his crucifixion was the antitype of 
the burning of that carcass "without the camp." We 
also know from the statement of the apostle that he 
was in a condition of corruption and death while here 
in the flesh, because he was raised from the dead, no 
more to return to corruption. We know that he did 
not see corruption while he was physically dead, 
hence it must have been during his earth-life that he 
was in the " bondage of corruption " ; and this agrees 
with all the points above, and with the statement of 
the apostle in Heb. v. 7, that God saved Jesus "in 
the days of his flesh" out of death. It also agrees 
with the prophecy in Isa. liii. 9, that Christ made his 
grave with the wicked and with the rich in his deaths, 
a statement that cannot be reconciled with his physi- 
cal death alone. Thus the view suggested makes 
harmony in all its parts, and the three points estab- 
lished thereby are the pre-existence and the real sac- 
rifice and the real death. 



CHAPTER VI. 
Christ's divinity and humanity. 



HIS DIVINITY. 

If I err not, the word divinity is misused ; accord- 
ing to the creeds, Christ the Son is identical with 
God the Father; Jesus is "the very unoriginated 
God," the creeds say ; and this absurd and utterly 
incomprehensible dogma is called the doctrine of 
Christ's Divinity. I think it should be the doctrine 
of Christ's Deity ; the word divinity means Go&likt - 
ness ; this was Christ's birthright. He is " the bright- 
ness of the Father's glory, and the express image of 
his person " ; this is the plain teaching of the Word ; 
but that Christ is absolutely the Deity himself is both 
unreasonable and unscriptural. 

The divinity of Christ consists in this, — his perfect 
likeness to God. Jesus is the accomplishment of God's 
creative work — a man created in the imago and like- 
ness of God, hence, "the perfect man " ; the first 
man so created; hence, "the beginning, thai in all 
things he might have the pre-eminence " (Col. i. 18) : 
" the beginning of the creation of God " (Rev. i i i - 14). 
In other words, Jesus is the firsl finished or perfected 
human being — (In 4 Son of God and Son i)( man. 
Not the eternal Son of (lod, which is nonsense, but 

142 



• Bible Harmony. 143 

the Son of the eternal God. This was all Jesus ever 
claimed to be ; thus the disciples referred to him. 
The Father himself bears the same testimony; as at 
his baptism, " This is' my Son, the Beloved." Read 
l lie first chapter of Hebrews, and notice how the 
divinity of Christ is set forth ; he is not the Deity, 
but his image. " But," says one, " does not the 
Father call him God in verse eight?" Yes, and the 
Father called Moses god (Ex. iv. 16 ; vii. 1) ; and 
others he calls gods (Psa. lxxxii. 6) ; but it is the Son 
still that is styled God. " Unto the Son he saith, 
Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever ; a sceptre of 
righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom ; thou 
hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity, there- 
fore God, even thy God, hath annointed thee with the 
oil of gladness above thy fellows." Is there any in- 
timation here that the Son, though he is addressed 
as God, is identical with the Father ? Certainly not ; 
just the opposite is plainly indicated. God is his God, 
as well as the God of his " fellows." So Jesus speaks, 
" I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to 
my God and your God." Your Father no less than 
my father ; my God as much as your God. 

There are some passages of scripture that are sup- 
posed to teach the absolute Deity of Christ ; a few of 
these we will notice. I will not stop to consider 1 
John v. 7, because that passage has long been known, 
and is now universally acknowledged to be spurious, 
and is omitted without comment from the new version. 

The strongest passage urged to prove the absolute 
Deity of Christ is undoubtedly the first two verses of 



144 Bible Harmony. 

the first chapter of John's gospel. " In the begin- 
ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, 
and the Word was God. The same was in the be- 
ginning with God." By the term Word, Jesus is un- 
doubtedly meant, and the declaration that the Word 
was God, seems to settle the question in the minds 
of many persons. Jesus was God ; here is the direct, 
positive statement; what appeal can there be from 
this ? Let us see. " The Word was God " ; i.e. Jesus 
was God ; what does that mean ? what might it mean ? 
It might mean that the two were identical, absolutely 
one ; this is the view of orthodoxism ; or it might 
mean that they were one in spirit, perfectly united 
in spirit and nature, one in purpose ; no one would 
deny, I think, that this latter explanation might pos- 
sibly be the correct one ; to decide the question 
which view was correct we should have to examine 
other scripture. In regard to the first explanation I 
would say that, if in this passage it was intended that 
we should understand that God and the Word were 
identical — that Jesus was the Deity — it should have 
read, "The Word is God," instead of "was God " : 
thus it appears to me. Again, the view that God and 
the Word are identical does not harmonize very w ell 
with the declaration, twice repeated, that " the Word 
was with God." If the Word and God are identical, 
one and the same being, they could not be with each 
other, for a being cannot properly be said to be with 
himself — the very language implies two beings. How- 
ever, these objections to the established view might be 
successfully cleared away ; but there are other scrip- 



Bible Harmony. 145 

lures that fully indicate the exact nature of that union 
which subsists between the Father and the Son — not 
identity, but harmony. This is especially evident from 
the Saviour's prayer in John xvii. Christ prays that 
" they (his disciples) all may be one, as thou, Father, 
art in me and I in thee, that they all may be one in 
us ; . . . that they may be one, even as we are one. 
I in them and thou in me, that they may be made per- 
fect in one." Now mark, — in whatever sense Christ 
and the Father are one, in that same sense are be- 
lievers to be one with the Father and the Son. Let 
this point be especially noticed, for it settles the 
question. If it be insisted that Jesus Christ is one 
with the Father in the sense of being " the very un- 
origiiiated God," then believers are to be one with 
God in the same sense ; for Christ's prayer is " that 
they all may be one even as we are one." Thus it 
will be seen that we cannot take this extreme view of 
Christ's Deity without including believers in the same 
unity, and making them one with God in the same 
sense. 

The meaning, then, is plain. Christ's divinity 
consists, not in identity with God, but likeness to 
him, and this is what he means when he says, " I and 
my Father are one " ; and in this same sense shall his 
disciples be one with the Father and Son, — " that 
they all may be one, even as we are one." 

Let us look at Christ's testimony concerning him- 
self. He says, " I and my Father are one." Then 
the Jews took up stones to stone him. Jesus asked 
them why they stoned him. They answered, "Be- 



146 Bible Harmony. 

cause that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." 
Here was the time, if ever, for Jesus to assert Iris 
Deity; if he was God now was the time to say it. 
What was his answer? "Jesus answered them, Is it 
not written in your law, I said ye are gods? (Psa. 
lxxxii. 6) if he called them gods, say ye of him 
whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the 
world, Thou blasphemest, because I said " — well, 
said what? That he was God? This is what we 
should expect from the drift of Christ's words, as 
though he had said, If God called them gods, do 
you call me a blasphemer because I say that I am 
God ? But Jesus does not say this ; he makes no 
such claim, but finishes the sentence with the simple 
words, " Because I said that I am the Son of God." 
This is all Christ ever claimed. He never said one 
word that indicated that he considered himself as the 
absolute Deity. He was one with the Father in 
spirit, in harmony, and the declaration thus under- 
stood is in perfect accord with another one — " My 
Father is greater than I." 

In harmony, then, with the foregoing, I understand 
John's statement, "the Word was God," not in the 
sense of identity of person or being, but in identity 
of spirit and purpose; there was such a "unity of 
spirit" that the agent was said to be the principle. 
In the beginning God said, "Lei us make man in our 
image." Christ has his part of the work to do in the 
creation of every man, for w *all judgment is committed 
unto him"; hence "without him was not anything 
made [i.e. completely made, finished] that was made." 



Bible Harmony. 147 

There are some other scriptures that are supposed 
to teach the absolute Deity of Christ ; but none that 
cannot be easily harmonized with the foregoing view. 
There is one in Phil. ii. 6 that ought to be noticed 
perhaps, because it is misleading on account of a 
mistranslation. The common version seems to imply 
that Christ was " equal with God " ; but the correct 
rendering teaches just the opposite. " He thought it 
not a thing to be grasped, to be on an equality with 
God" (see new version, text and margin). This 
passage is thus very strongly against the view of the 
absolute Deity of Christ. 

Now let us inquire in what sense and to what 
degree is Christ divine or godlike ? " In him all 
fulness dwells," "all the fulness of the godhood 
bodily." " In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge," and in his face we behold " the light 
of the knowledge of the glory of God" (2 Cor. iv. 6). 
"No man hath seen God at any time; the only be- 
gotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, lie 
hath declared him." " No man knoweth the Son but 
the Father, and no man knoweth the Father but the 
Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal him." 
Thus does the full extent of Christ's divinity appear ; 
he is the perfect image, likeness, and revelation of 
God ; " the brightness of the Father's glory, and the 
express image of his person." So perfect is the 
harmony that we may say, " the Word was God " ; 
and Jesus could say, " I and my Father are one." 
So exact is the likeness that Jesus could declare, 
" He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father also." 



148 Bible Harmony. 

HIS HUMANITY. 

Orthodoxism lays great stress upon the Deity of 
Christ; but it seems to me more important that we 
should comprehend his humanity. That the wonder- 
ful, sinless Jesus was divine I can easily believe ; but 
was he human ? I doubt not that he was like God ; 
but was he like man ? and if so, how, and in what 
respect, and to what extent ? The common doctrine 
that Christ the Son is absolutely God the Father, is 
not only absurd, self-contradictory, and unscriptural, 
but it is confusing, misleading, and discouraging to 
the soul seeking after God. If Christ was the Deity, 
then how is he my pattern? how is his victory any 
encouragement to me? He was the Almighty, abso- 
lute controller of all forces; it was impossible for 
him to sin and he knew it ; therefore his trial was no 
trial at all, and his triumph no encouragement to 
fallen man, since the circumstances of the two are in 
no way similar; man is the almost helpless football 
of the forces (mostly evil) around him; if Christ 
was God, then he was the master of all forces, and of 
course could be overcome by none ; hence his moral 
triumph is no more encouraging to the sinner, than 
is the business success of a man who starts out with 
millions of money to begin with, any encouragement 
to the pool- tradesman who begins with nothing. It" 
Jesus Christ did not begin as low down as I am, 
(lien the fact that, lie made his way out o( this 
horrible pit of corruption and death is no help to me ; 
what I want to know most as a member o( the fallen 



Bible Harmony. 149 

race is, not how near Christ comes to God, but how 
near he comes to man. I want to know, of course, if 
he can reach up to God; but I want to know still 
more if he can reach down to me ; in short, I want to 
know if he was man, "a brother born for adversity," 
a child born, as well as a Son given. 

From the considerations presented in the last 
chapter, it is plainly apparent that Christ's trial was 
no farce ; but a terrible reality, fraught with un- 
certainty and fear, just as our trial is to us. These 
considerations of themselves show how thoroughly 
Christ was human, how fully he entered into all the 
experiences of fallen man. We have also' seen that 
in his incarnation, though there was the co-operation 
of God's creative power, yet Christ was human, 
" made of a woman," and brought into the world like 
every other human being. We have seen also that 
the life of Christ was one of suffering, deprivation, 
and loneliness ; he was truly " a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief," and in this respect again he 
was like fallen man. But now let us notice further, 
step by step, his nature and life, according to the 
Word, that we may note how in every particular and 
detail he was indeed the Son of man. 

We may be sure from many and the plainest 
scriptures that Christ was really human, especially 
from Heb. ii. 14-18. 

" Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh 
and blood, he himself likewise took part of the 
game. . . . Whereof it behooved him [i.e. he was 
obliged] in all tilings to be made like unto his 



150 Bible Harmony. 

brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful 
high priest in things pertaining to God, to make 
reconciliation for the sins of the people ; for in that 
he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to 
succor them that are tempted." 

Now in order to be like his brethren in all things, 
he began his earth life even lower down than Adam ; 
the latter was created a son of God, an adult human 
being, with a sinless nature. Christ began his life 
a helpless babe, Son of fallen man as well as Son 
of God, with a sinful nature. Some perhaps will 
demur to the statement that Christ had a sinful 
nature; but such certainly is the positive teaching 
of scripture. He was " made sin " ; he was not a 
sinner; on the contrary, he "knew no sin"*: lie was 
holy, harmless, undefiled " ; how then was he made 
sin ? By taking upon himself man's fallen nature ; 
in no other way could he have been made sin : and 
this is still further confirmed by the fact that he was 
"made of woman." "Who can bring a clean thing 
out of an unclean? Not one" (Job xiv. 4). Further- 
more, he was " in all points tempted like as we." 1 Eow 
could he have thus been tempted if he had not bad 
a sinful nature? He was obliged to be made like Ins 
brethren in all things; surely he would not have 
been like his brethren at all if he had had a sinless 
nature. Similar language is used of Christ as oi the 
sons of fallen Adam. "Adam begat a son in his 
own likeness " ((Jen. v. 3), the likeness o[ sinful man. 
So Christ "was made in (he likeness o{ men" (Phil. 
ii. 7) "in the Likeness o\' sinful flesh" (Rom. 
vni. 3). 



Bible Harmony. 151 

Now see all this exemplified in his life. The 
Evangelist speaks of his childhood just as you might 
speak of the childhood of any human being. " Jesus 
increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with 
God and man." His reputed father was poor, a 
laboring man ; Jesus was subject to him, no doubt 
laboring with him, thus knowing the experience of 
the great army of earth's toilers. There was of 
course something about him remarkable and extraor- 
dinary, different from other boys ; he was " filled 
with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him " ; 
and yet there was nothing in this to prevent him 
from entering fully into all the experiences of the 
infancy, childhood, and youth of human kind. 

Thus also in Christ's mmistr}^ we find the human 
element, rather than the divine, most prominent. 
In referring to himself, Christ almost always styles 
himself the Son of man ; four times he calls himself 
the Son of God ; eighty times he takes to himself the 
name, Son of man. He was weak and feeble as ever 
any poor mortal was. He says, "I can of mine own 
self do nothing " (see John v. 19, 30 ; viii. 28) ; was 
ever any one weaker than that? But perhaps some 
one says : " Did not Christ perform wonderful mira- 
cles ? did he not cure all manner of diseases, cast out 
devils, command the elements, walk on the water, 
and raise the dead ? were these the works of a poor, 
weak man?" No, these were the works of God; 
not Christ's works at all, but the works of God the 
Father. He empowered Christ ; it was through God's 
power alone that Christ performed his mighty works. 



152 Bible Harmony. 

God could empower you or I to do the same things if 
he pleased, and some will have this power ultimately 
even to do greater things than Christ did. (See 
John xiv. 12.) This position may seem strange and 
very erroneous to some who have not heretofore 
thought of this matter; I know that the common 
idea is that Christ performed his miracles by his own 
power. For instance, in a little theological work that 
now lies before me (which the ministers of a certain 
so called " evangelical " denomination are required 
to study), I read : " As man, Christ weeps over the 
grave of Lazarus ; as God, he raises him from the 
dead. As man, he suffers and dies ; as God, he 
raises his own body from the grave." Now I do not 
hesitate to affirm that nothing could be more un- 
scriptural than this ; in fact, it is just the opposite 
of the truth. Christ did nothing by his own power, — 
" the Son can do nothing of himself," — and we are 
told repeatedly that God raised Christ from the 
dead " by his own power " (1 Cor. vi. 14). Jesus 
never claimed to perform miracles or to do any work 
in his own name or by his own power ; on the con- 
trary, he expressly cfo'sclaims it. He did his mighty 
works " by the spirit of God " (Matt. xii. 28) or " by 
the linger of God" (Luke xi. 20), i.e. in plain lan- 
guage, by the power of God (compare Ex. viii. 
19). The works that he did were not his own 
works (John ix. 4). The words he uttered were 
not his words (John iii. 34; xiv. 10; xvii. 8). "It 
is my meat and drink," he said, " to do my Father's 
will and to finish his work": again he says, "The 



Bible Harmony. 153 

Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." 
Jesus always attributed his works to God ; for 
instance, when he cured the demoniac, he says to 
him, " Return to thine own house and show how 
great things [not I, but] Grod hath done unto thee " ; 
and the man went his way and published throughout 
the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto 
him. Jesus knew that it was God dwelling in him 
that did the work, and he thus speaks ; the cured 
man knew nothing of God, but saw only Christ as 
the instrument of his salvation. All this is positive. 
Christ in himself was a weak, feeble man ; what he 
did was by the power of God, just as God might 
empower any one to do a mighty work; thus, for 
instance, Paul speaks, " I labored more abundantly 
than they all, yet not I but the grace of God that 
was with me " (1 Cor. xv. 10) ; so Christ with equal 
truth might have said the same ; Christ's very life 
was dependent upon God. We have already seen 
that Jesus was in a condition of death while here 
in the flesh; the only life he had was "of God," as 
he himself said : " I live by the father " (John vi. 
57). In this respect also he was " like unto his 
brethren," who, while in this bondage of corruption, 
have no life in themselves, but are " dead" possess- 
ing only the "life hid with Christ in God" (Col. 
iii. 3). 

Now notice how this view that everything in 
Christ's career was of God is still further confirmed. 
Out of many passages that might be cited I will only 
refer to two. Acts ii. 22 : " Jesus of Nazareth, a 



154 Bible Harmony. 

man approved of God among you by miracles, and 
wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the 
midst of you as ye yourselves also know." God did 
the miracles, wonders, and signs, by Christ. Again, 
see Acts x. 38-42. " God anointed Jesus of Nazareth 
with the holy spirit and with power ; who went about 
doing good, and healing all that were possessed of 
the devil, for God was with him ; and we are wit- 
nesses of all things which he did both in the laud 
of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and 
hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the third day, 
and showed him openly ; not to all the people, but 
unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who 
did eat and drink with him after he rose from the 
dead; and he commanded us to preach unto the 
people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained 
of God to be the judge of quick and dead." Notice 
how, in this passage, everything is attributed to God. 
He it was that anointed Jesus, who was able to do 
mighty deeds because "God was with him"; God 
raised him up from the dead, and chose the witnesses 
of his resurrection, and God has ordained him to be 
judge. Here, as everywhere else, we see that " All 
things are of God"; this was as true in relation 
to Jesus as to any other person. Jesus was as 
truly "God's workmanship" (Eph. ii. 10) as any 
other being. He was "the beginning of the 
creation of God" (Rev. iii. 14), kw the firstborn ol' 
every creature" (Col. i. 15); God was his Creator, 
God, and Father, jnst as he is our Creator, God, 
and Father. (See I Pet. Lv. L9 j John w. 17.) 



Bible Harmony. 155 

God brought him into the world (Heb. i. G) ; 
his whole life and work was God- wrought, as we 
have seen ; so his passion and crucifixion (Acts 
ii. 23 ; iv. 27, 28), his resurrection, exaltation, and 
priesthood (Acts ii. 24 ; Phil. ii. 9 ; Heb. vi. 20) ; his 
return to judge, and reign, and deliver the " whole 
creation" (Acts xvii. 31; Rom. ii. 16; Psa. ii. 8; 
Dan. vii. 13, 14; Rom. viii. 19-20) is all of God — 
all of Grod ; and this is very wonderful and precious, 
and shows how fully Christ was identified with the 
race, how thoroughly he was human. He began 
on the same plane, and passed through the same 
process, — " made perfect through suffering " — that 
fallen man must pass through in order to reach 
perfection. So thoroughly was he human that he 
was under the curse (Gal. iii. 13), and had to 
be redeemed like the rest of mankind. (See Heb. 
ix. 11, 12.) "But Christ being come, . . . neither 
by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own 
blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having 
obtained eternal redemption." The addition of the 
words for us at the end of this passage in the common 
version, is an illustration of the process by which the 
translators, it would seem, sought to help out the 
meaning ; but those words obscure the sense ; Christ 
had first to obtain redemption for himself, before he 
could redeem others. God must first redeem him, 
by " saving him out of death " (Heb. v. 7, new ver- 
sion, margin) before he could redeem us. "All things 
are of God." He is the great, original Redeemer, 
redeeming Jesus, the world's Redeemer, that Jesus 



156 Bible Harmony. 

might redeem the world ; hence prophetically Jesus 
is represented as recognizing this fact when the 
Psalmist makes him say, as we know he did, at least 
partly say, " Into thine hand I commit my spirit ; 
thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth" (Psa. 
xxxi. 5 ; compare Luke xxiii. 46). 

And now we can answer another question that 
may be asked. If Christ began even lower than 
Adam, and was a poor, weak man with a fallen 
nature, how did he come off victorious in his trial, 
when Adam, though he seemed to have had a better 
opportunity, failed so utterly? The answer to this 
question is again, — " All things are of God." Why 
did Adam fail ? Because it was God's plan that he 
shoidd fail. Why did Christ succeed? Because it 
was God's plan that he should succeed; " the grace 
of God was upon him " ; God " made known to him 
the ways of life" (Acts ii. 28). Take your Bible 
and turn to Isa. xlii. 1-12 ; read the whole passage 
carefully, comparing it with Matt. xii. 18-21, and 
see how thoroughly Christ's success was of God. 
God says by the prophet : " Behold my servant whom 
I uphold. I have put my spirit [power] upon him ; 
he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles; he 
shall bring forth judgment unto trull). He shall not 
fail." Why? Because "I, the Lord, have called thee 
in righteousness, and will hold thine hand and will 
keep thee, and give 4 thee for a covenant of the people 
for a light of the Gentiles." What for? "To open 
the blind eves, to bring out the prisoners from the 
prison, and them that sit in darkness out o[ the 



Bible Harmony. 157 

prison house " ; and then Jehovah adds, thus taking 
all this upon himself, "I am the Lord, that is my 
name ; and my glory will I not give to another, 
neither my praise to graven images." Could lan- 
guage frame anything more positive to show that 
" God worketh all things after the counsel of his own 
will " ? and that, too, in the career of his " only be- 
gotten Son," as much as in the life of any human 
being ? As we have seen, his birth, trial, sufferings, 
and death were of God ; so also his mighty works, — 
victory, exaltation, and glory. " It pleased the Lord 
to bruise him ; he hath put him to grief " (Isa. liii. 10) ; 
"it [also] pleased the Father that in him should all 
fulness dwell " ; " he hath highly exalted him " (Col. i. 
19 ; Phil. ii. 9). Verily, " all things are of God." 

Jesus had to pass through a process of growth, in- 
struction, and perfecting, just as man must, in order 
to reach the " image of God." " He grew in wisdom 
and in favor with God and man." There were some 
things he did not know (Mark xiii. 32), and he had 
to be instructed ; among the rest he " learned obedi- 
ence by the things which he suffered " (Heb. v. 8) ; 
he had to pass through a training process " that he 
might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things 
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins 
of the people " (Heb. ii. 17), and finally he was "per- 
fected through suffering " (Heb. ii. 10), " and being 
made perfect he became the author of eternal salva- 
tion unto all them that obey him" (Heb. v. 9). 

Christ's final sufferings and death were those of a 
human being. He suffered as a martyr, just as other 



158 Bible Harmony. 

martyrs have suffered before and since, i.e. so far as 
the giving up of his natural life was concerned. We 
have already seen that the life Jesus laid down and 
took up again, was not his earthly but his pre-ex- 
istent life. His natural life was " taken " from him 
(see Acts viii. 33), just as the natural life has again 
and again been taken from other martyrs. He died 
voluntarily, to be sure, and yet he was " put to death " 
(1 Pet. iii. 18) " by wicked hands." Paul says " he 
was crucified through weakness " (2 Cor. xiii. 4). 
All this shows what a weak, feeble, human being 
Christ was in himself, though empowered of the Father 
to perform wonderful miracles ; just as we are weak 
in ourselves, though " mighty through God to the pull- 
ing down of strongholds." Christ's resurrection, Ave 
have seen, was of God, and it is also plain that he was 
raised as a man, — a man still even after he had been 
" declared to be the Son of God with power, according 
to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the 
dead " (Rom i. 4) ; not now the " man of sorrows," 
with " marred visage," corruptible flesh, and fallen 
nature, but the restored, perfected man, "made per- 
fect through suffering"; and yet he still was a man 
with flesh and bones (Luke xxiv. 39), eating and drink- 
ing with his disciples (Acts x. 41), and living in 
familiar intercourse with them for forty days. Then 
he ascended and was seated at God's right hand, still 
a, man (Luke xxii. 69; Acts a i i . 56), and one day he 
will come again, " thissame Jesus" (Acts i. 11). that 
was with them during that forty days, " the man 
Christ Jesus" J as it is written, "The Son of man 



Bible Harmony. 159 

shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, 
and then he shall reward every man according to his 
works." Thus in his entire career Christ is most 
thoroughly identified in every particular and detail 
with fallen man ; he is emphatically our " forerun- 
ner,' ' having passed over, step by step, the same path 
that every son and daughter of the human race must 
tread to reach the likeness of God. 

We will notice one more point which still further 
confirms the foregoing, and sets forth the wonderful 
and blessed relation that subsists between Christ and 
his own. The relation of Christ to his followers is 
that of a sample to the whole ; in the Bible this rela- 
tion is represented under the most striking figures. 
For example, Christ is the vine, ye are the branches. 
Christ is the elder brother, ye are the members of the 
same household. He is "the firstborn among many 
brethren." Christ " is the chief corner-stone " in the 
"building of God"; ye are "lively," or rather, "living 
stones " in the same building, built up a " spiritual 
house " " for an habitation of God through the spirit." 
Christ is the heavenly bridegroom, the church is the 
bride, "espoused as a chaste virgin unto him," and 
they twain are one. " This is a great mystery, but I 
speak concerning Christ and the church " (Eph. v. 
32) ; and yet again Christ and believers are one body, 
of which he is the head and they are the members ; 
" Ye are the body of Christ and members in partic- 
ular " (1 Cor. xii. 27). Now if we carry out this 
last figure, we might reason that if Christ and be- 
lievers constitute one body, then every member must 



160 Bible Harmony. 

share in the same experience that every other mem- 
ber has, whether of sorrow or joy, pain or pleasure, 
humiliation or glory. This is, of course, the truth 
with reference to the members of the literal bod}', 
and according to the Word it is also the truth with 
reference to Christ's mystical body ; as it is written, 
" there should be no schism [or, margin, division] in 
the body ; but the members should have the same care 
one for another ; and whether one member suffer, all 
the members suffer with it ; or one member be hon- 
ored, all the members rejoice Avith it." Now the head 
of this mystical body is Christ, and if it be true that 
every member shares in the experience of every other 
member, then the head shares in the experience of 
all the members, and all the members share in the 
experience of the head. And this indeed is the won- 
derful truth that runs all through the New Testa- 
ment. Believers are represented as passing through 
the same experiences, enduring the same sufferings, 
having the same promises and encouragements, and 
finally sharing in the same exaltation and glory as 
their Lord and Saviour. Whatever promise or dec- 
laration is made of Christ, either of suffering, dis- 
honor, or humiliation, or of 303^, honor, or glory, the 
same, or a similar promise or declaration, is made of 
his followers; as Christ was "made in all things like 
unto his brethren," so his brethren are to be made 
in all things like unto him (1 John iii. '1). I have 
already given many proofs and illustrations o{ this 
truth. We have seen how, in the fullest sense, Jesus 
was made a "partaker o[ flesh and blood," Le. of 



Bible Harmony. 1G1 

human nature ; now I want to show how believers 
are made "partakers of the divine nature." Every 
Christian understands that we must deny self, forsake 
all, and follow Jesus in his sufferings here, if we 
would share in his glory by and by. It is a precious 
thought that it is possible for us to know the fel- 
lowship of Christ's sufferings (Phil. iii. 10). The 
period of " the sufferings of Christ " (1 Pet. i. 11) 
has not yet expired ; for the believer " fills up that 
which is behind of the afflictions of Christ" (Col. i. 
24), and " if one member suffers all the members 
[including the head] suffer with it." As the mem- 
bers now suffer with the head, so the head still suffers 
with the members. In this view we may be able with 
Paul to " glory in tribulation," " to take pleasure in 
infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecu- 
tions, in distresses, for Christ's sake," because thereby 
we are "made partakers of Christ's sufferings," that 
we may ultimately be " partakers of the glory that 
shall be revealed." Suffering with Christ is a part 
of our calling ; " for even hereunto were ye called, be- 
cause Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example 
that we should follow in his steps " ; and again Paul 
says, " Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, 
not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his 
sake." Thus it is our privilege, a gift of God, to 
share with Christ in his humiliation and afflictions, 
and if we thus share with him, we shall also share in 
his honor and glory, and to as full an extent as 
Christ himself; though this may seem almost too 
much to say, yet it is no more than is fully warranted 
by plain scripture. 



102 Bible Harmony. 

Christ and believers are perfected by suffering 
(see Heb. ii. 10, with 1 Peter v. 10). Both are 
appointed to the same destiny. Is Jesus " a Son of 
God " ? Believers are also sons ; Jesus is " the first- 
born among many brethren," — one among "many 
sons." Is Jesus an " heir of God " ? Believers are 
" joint heirs with him." Does there dwell in Christ 
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily? Believers 
are to be "filled with all the fulness of God" (Eph. 
hi. 19). Is Christ a Prophet, Priest, King, Judge, 
and Saviour? The saints share in all these offices 
(see Rev. i. 6 ; 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3; Ob. 21). Has Christ 
'a throne and a kingdom? The saints share both 
(see Rev. iii. 21 ; Dan. vii. 18). Is Christ to rule 
and reign ? The saints are to rule and reign with him 
(Rev. ii. 26, 27; xx. 4). Is Christ the brightness 
of the Father's glory and the express image of his 
person ? Believers are to be " like him" (1 John iii. 
2). " We all with open face [face unveiled] behold- 
ing as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed 
into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by 
the spirit of the Lord." Is Christ divine ? Believers 
shall also be "partakers of the divine nature " (2 Pet. 
i. 4). "As we have borne the image of the earthy, 
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." Is 
Christ holy, harmless, undefiled ? We are to be made 
"partakers of his holiness" (Heb.xii. 10"). Is Christ 
called God? So God's people receive the same Lofty 
title, as we have already noticed. Is Christ one with 
God? Believers are to share in tin 1 same unity, o( 
the same hind, and to the same extent, —"that they 



Bible Harmony. 163 

all may be one even as we are one." Now all this is 
most wonderful and blessed, and plainly indicates 
how thoroughly believers are "made partakers of 
Christ" (Heb. iii. 14). Whatever he has been, is, or 
may be, they must be, are, and shall be ; and oh, 
how near this great truth brings Christ to the be- 
liever ! He is our elder brother, sharing with us and 
we with him in all the experiences of fallen man; 
and still mutually sharing in all the exaltation and 
glory of " the perfect man." Thus the divine Jesus 
imparts his divinity to the elect, — the promised 
" seed " — through whom the same divinity shall be 
transmitted unto " all the families of the earth," until 
there shall be a race divine, Godlike, — " and there 
shall be no more anything accursed." 

There are certain respects in which Christ differs 
from the rest of mankind. As God makes one to 
differ from another (1 Cor. iv. 7), so he, and he 
alone, makes Jesus to differ from all the rest of his 
creation ; not in his earthly condition, for in that 
respect he was made " like his brethren in all things," 
except, of course, that Christ was sinless ; nor does he 
differ in his perfected state, for we too shall be made 
"partakers of the divine nature." But God hath 
made him to differ in priority and rank, for " He is 
before all things and in him all things hold together " 
(Col. i. 17, new version, margin). "He is the head 
over all things," " the beginning, the ^rs^born from 
the dead, that in all things he might have the pre- 
eminence.'" Therefore, "unto the Son, God saith, 
thy throne, O God, is for the age ; a sceptre of 



16-1 Bible Harmony. 

righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou 
hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity, there- 
fore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with 
the oil of gladness above thy fellows." Thus does it 
appear that the pre-eminent Son is as much " of 
God," as are the " many sons " ; all are " his work- 
manship," as it is written, " Of God are ye in Christ 
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteous- 
ness, santification, and redemption." " O the depth 
of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of 
God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his 
ways past rinding out ! For who hath known the 
mind of the Lord ? or who hath been his counsellor ? 
For of him, and through him, and to him, are all 
things: to whom be glory unto the ages. Amen." 

Is not all this most grand and precious? How 
encouraging and reassuring to every member of the 
race ! In your struggle with trials, temptations, and 
sins, you may walk the same path as the Master. He 
was weak like you. " In the days of his flesh " he 
knew, as we do, what it was to "pray and supplicate 
with strong crying and tears," to realize himself in 
a "horrible pit" of corruption and death, and to be 
oppressed with " fear " and anxiety lest he should 
never escape therefrom; he has known, as every 
believer must know, what it is to endure, to light, 
to weep, to pray, to suffer and toil, to agonize and 
plead as he did in the garden; in short, "to enter 
into the kingdom of heaven through much tribu- 
lation." Furthermore, lie was on the same plain thai 
we are, had to contend with the same things thai we 



Bible Harmony. 165 

do, had no more strength than we have, depended 
on the same almighty Being that we may, bore the 
same reproach and shame that we must, and all " for 
the joy that was set before him" "in bringing many 
sons unto glory," just as Moses "chose to suffer 
affliction with the people of God " in order to lead 
them out of bondage, " because he had respect unto 
the recompense of the reward." Thus Christ's tri- 
umph is a pledge of our victory ; his Father is our 
Father, his God is our God; his resources are all 
ours ; " as he is so are we in the world " ; Christ had 
no advantage over us; the same God who alone 
delivered him, " making known to him the ways of 
life," " saving him out of death" " holding his hand 
and keeping him," has promised to deliver the whole 
creation from the bondage of corruption. " God was 
in Christ reconciling the world unto himself " ; " he 
was the firstborn of every creature." He is the pat- 
tern man of God's finished creation, and the pledge 
and promise under God's hand and seal (John vi. 27) 
of the final exaltation of man to dominion over " all 
things" (Heb. ii. 5-11). "For as in Adam all die, 
even so in Christ shall all be made alive." "As by the 
offence of one, judgment came upon all men to con- 
demnation, so by the righteousness of one, the free 
gift came upon all men unto justification of life." 
"Therefore let no man glory in man ["but he that 
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord"], for all things 
are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the 
world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to 
come, — all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ 



166 Bible Harmony. 

is God's " ; and thus, blessed be the dear Father of 
all, we arrive again at the conclusion that " all things 
are of God." "We are his workmanship" (Eph. 
ii. 10). "He maketh all things" (Isa. xliv. 24), from 
Christ the beginning of his creation, to the last one 
delivered from the bondage of corruption. " For I am 
the first, and with the last, saith the Lord" (Isa. 
xli. 4). 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ATONEMENT. 

The popular idea of the atonement as taught by 
orthodoxism, seems to me not only unscriptural, but 
unreasonable ; this popular idea most awfully misrep- 
resents God, distorts the truth of his Word into most 
ugly deformities, and totally obscures the great truth 
that Jesus Christ is the image and likeness of God, 
the most perfect revelation of the Father that we have. 
Instead of this great truth, Christ is represented in 
contrast with the Father; the latter, stern and inex- 
orable ; the former, tender, merciful, and loving. 

The common idea is that Christ suffers and dies 
in man's stead to satisfy the justice of God, so that 
he can forgive and accept the sinner; thus Christ 
bears the penalty of sin in man's stead, pays man's 
debt, and, as a consequence of Christ's redemptive 
work, the Father pardons and restores the sinner, if 
he repent and believe. The above seems to me all 
wrong. Christ does not suffer in man's stead, but 
witli him as his companion and associate — not to 
satisfy God's justice (what sort of justice is it that is 
satisfied with the sufferings of an innocent victim?), 
but to reveal his love. Christ does not bear the 'penalty 
of sin for man, but he bears the sin itself. " Behold 

1G7 



168 Bible Harmony. 

the Lamb of God that beareth away the sin of the 
world" (John i. 29, margin). "Who his own self 
bears our sins in his own body on the tree." Further- 
more, the Father's mercy and love are not a conse- 
quence of Christ's redemptive work; but Christ's 
redemption is a consequence of the Father's mercy 
and love. It was God that made the atonement. 
"G-od was in Christ reconciling the world unto him- 
self." " Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee, 
saith the Lord." Thus the atonement, like every- 
thing else, is "of God"; and this great truth of itself 
must necessarily change the entire aspect of the 
atonement as viewed by the majority of Christians. 
From the standpoint of this truth it can be seen at 
once that the notion of Christ's work being for the 
satisfying of God's justice, or to reconcile him to 
man, must be an error; it is God himself who makes 
the reconciliation ; surely it would be absurd to con- 
ceive of God as reconciling himself — pacifying, ap- 
peasing, or propitiating himself ; and yet this is just 
exactly the absurdity that creedal orthodox ism in- 
volves. 

The two points for us to notice and keep in mind 
in our study of this doctrine, are, first, love was the 
motive power; and second, God was the prime mover. 
Any view that contradicts or obscures these two facts 
must be erroneous; a view that makes justice the 
prominent attribute in the atonement to the obscura- 
tion or compromising of God's love cannot be true; 
a view thai exalts Christ as man's redeemer, and 
detracts from the character of God, thus putting the 



Bible Harmony. 169 

two in contrast or opposition, must be utterly false. 
The following stanza illustrates this error. 

" Jesus Christ, who stands between 
Angry heaven and guilty man, 
Undertakes to buy our peace ; 
Gives the covenant of grace." 

Think of the picture that this stanza conjures up. 
Jesus Christ standing between angry heaven and 
guilty man ! Think of it ! As though an angry God is 
only kept from pouncing upon guilty man by Jesus 
Christ standing between, holding him back with one 
hand while he extends the other in compassion and 
mercy toward the cowering sinner. Jesus reassures 
the latter by undertaking to buy a peace for him with 
the Father ; that is, to purchase a reconciliation ; and 
he it is — Jesus — who gives the covenant of grace. 
Is it not very plain that this is entirely wrong ? is it 
not a gross misrepresentation of the attitude that the 
Father holds toward the sinner ? A Father, indeed ! 
What a misapplication of the name it would be if the 
view implied in the above stanza were the true one ! 
Must the favor of a Father be bought? does Jesus 
give the covenant of grace ? is it not " the grace 
of God that bringeth salvation unto all men" 
(Tit. ii. 11) ? Is it any wonder that, thus misin- 
structed by the creeds and standards, the people 
should " perish for lack of knowledge " ? 

Right at this juncture I wish to offer a word in 
regard to this golden declaration of Holy Writ — 
God is love. It is quite the fashion with some severe 



170 Bible Harmony. 

religionists to affect to be disgusted when anything is 
said in this line, and to declare that such views as 
the foregoing make out God to be like a weak, indul- 
gent human parent, so soft and yielding as to let his 
children have their own way about everything, and 
never correct them ; it is farther declared that though 
it is true that God is love, it is also true that he is 
just, and that he will by no means clear the guilty, 
or forgive the impenitent, etc. To all this I would 
reply, first, by utterly disclaiming any intention of 
making out our heavenly Father to be weak and 
indulgent. I yield to no one in my estimation of 
God's righteous judgments, the absolute certainty of 
his retributions, and the utter impossibility of the 
escape of the guilty. God is just, and we may be 
sure that he will pay the strictest regard to that qual- 
ity in his dealings with all his creatures. But mark 
you, nowhere in the Bible does it say, God is jus- 
tice; but it does say God is love; the difference is 
just this : justice is an attribute of God, like right- 
eousness, mercy, goodness, etc., but love is more than 
an attribute; it is his very substance — God is love — 
not simply lovely or loving or lovable, but love itself. 
This quality lies at the very basis of his character, 
and since "he cannot deny himself," every other 
quality and attribute is simply a manifestation of 
this. God's justice, or even his wrath, is a manifes- 
tation of his love ; it must be so, for God is love, and 
whatsoever God is must always be manifest in what- 
ever he does. Love, fchen, is the background and the 
basis of all God's works and ways — a kw perfect lo\ e " 



Bible Harmony. 171 

that " beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth 
all things, endureth all things, and never faileth" 
(1 Cor. xiii). Ah, what a love is the love of God ! 
Oar love is selfish, narrow, exclusive, weak, wavering, 
indulgent, sometimes even harmful and pernicious in 
its influence because of its blindness and lack of 
judgment, and ill-advised lavishness. But God's love 
is strong, unwavering, universal, righteous, just, and 
good. O rare love ! a love that is always just ; a love 
that is as broad as the universe ; a love that will stop 
at nothing to accomplish the good of the one beloved ; 
a love that chastises, corrects, inflicts pain and suffer- 
ing, and stays not nor desists because of the com- 
plaints of the sufferer ; a love that kills and makes 
alive (Deut. xxxii. 39), that wounds and makes whole 
(Job v. 18), that smites and binds up, that tears and 
heals (Hos. vi. 1), that even " turneth man to destruc- 
tion and saith, return ye children of man"; a love 
that manifests itself when needed, in wrath and fierce 
anger, in fiery judgments and dire retributions ; a 
love that is willing to remain unknown by the one 
beloved, that is willing to be misunderstood, ma- 
ligned, and slandered ; a love that will wait long 
years, centuries, millenniums, ages, for recognition, 
and yet is seeking all the time the good of its object ; 
and that will hud its full reward at last in simple 
reciprocation. This is the love that ruleth over all, 
and that will have its own way at last, for "love 
never faileth." 

But if all this be true, how shall we understand 
such scripture as "he tasted death for every man," 



172 Bible Harmony. 

" the just for the unjust," "he bore our sins," "by 
his stripes we are healed," etc.? All these scrip- 
tures are fulfilled by Christ as our associate and com- 
panion. Christ tasted death for every man, but not 
instead of him, for man himself must die; and in 
fact was already involved in the death (this fallen 
state) which Christ tasted. Is not the thought 
sweeter by far that Christ is our companion and 
associate, made in all points like his brethren, sharing 
with us in all our woes and troubles, rather than 
that he should bear a penalty and endure a burden in 
which we have no share, that we might escape that 
penalty and that burden altogether, he taking our 
punishment, and we going scathless? The rich, in 
the time of the war, when they were drafted, hired a 
substitute to take their place and go to the front ; 
the substitute went to the war; the wealthy con- 
script stayed at home ; the latter took his ease 
at home, away from the hardships and perils of the 
camp, the march, and the battle-field; the substi- 
tute went in his stead. Would it be pleasant to 
think of Christ as thus standing 1 in our stead ? To 
me it is a grander thought to think of Christ as my 
intimate companion, brother, friend, equal sharer in 
all our experiences. He knowing all my woes, I 
filling up that which is behind of his afflictions; he 
drinking of the same cup that I (in my measure) 
must drink of (Mark x. 39) ; 1 following him in all 
things here, that 1 may share with him in all things 
by and by. 

For a further example read versos four and live of 



Bible Harmony. 173 

the fifty-third of Isaiah ; and then turn to Matt. viii. 
16, 17, and see how the prophecy was fulfilled. 
Christ " Lore our griefs and carried our sorrows " — 
not instead of us, that we might not bear them, but 
as a sympathizing companion and helper, delivering 
us from the death-load (Rom. vii. 24, 25) in God's 
" due season." Christ comes to deliver mankind, 
not because they are in danger of being lost, or in 
danger of suffering a " death that never dies," but 
because they are already lost and dead; and Jesus 
comes to " seek until he find them," and to give " life 
unto the world." " I am come that they might have 
life, and that they might have it more abundantly " ; 
and in accomplishing this great work, Jesus becomes 
one with us. " Forasmuch as the children were par- 
takers of flesh and blood, he likewise took part in 
the same, that through death he might destroy him 
that had the power of death, that is the devil, and 
deliver them who through fear of death were all 
their lifetime subject to bondage." 

Furthermore, let it be remembered that the finished 
work of redemption is made the ground of the invita- 
tion to the sinner to be reconciled to God. In the 
popular theology it is put the other way about ; sin- 
ners are exhorted to repent in order that they may 
be redeemed ; but Paul says that the world has been 
reconciled to God; God himself has accomplished 
the reconciling work, and it is done; "now then, 
we beseech you, be ye [as individuals] reconciled to 
God." Mark the situation : it is not that the sinner, 
either for himself or by some mediator and interces- 



174 Bible Harmony. 

sor, must beg of God for pardon and salvation, but 
the work of redemption is done ; the world is recon- 
ciled to God; and now God by his ambassadors 
beseeches the sinner — think of it! He pleads with 
the sinner, to be reconciled to himself. "Now, 
then, we are ambassadors for Christ; as though God 
did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, 
be ye reconciled to God." Does that read in har- 
mony with the view that God must be reconciled to 
man, propitiated and appeased and bought up, in 
order to make him willing to forgive and save the 
sinner? 

But some one will perhaps ask at this point, " How 
then shall we understand those scriptures that speak 
of Christ as being the mediator and the propitiation 
for our sins, an advocate with the Father, etc. ? " 
The answer to this question brings us to another 
division of our subject, viz. : 

THE TERMINOLOGY OF THE ATONEMENT. 

These terms are varied and quite numerous, such, 
for instance, as Atonement, Reconciliation, Salvation, 
Propitiation, Intercession, Mediator, Advocate. Re- 
demption, Ransom, Purchased, and Bought. Much 
controversy has been waged over these terms, and 
there has been an immense amount of talk as to their 
true meaning and significance. I would say first 
that the investigation of principles is of much more 
importance than that of words: and when the prin- 
ciples of God's economy plainly appear, we should 
not allow mere tonus to shake our confidence therein : 



Bible Harmony. 175 

let us interpret the terms in harmony with the prin- 
ciples, and not sacrifice principles for the sake of a 
rigid interpretation of terms. In my remarks thus 
far on this subject I have tried to point out principles 
— broad foundation truths upon which, if I err not, 
the redemptive work is based. In harmony with these 
we will study the terminology of this great subject 
and the formal statements of the Bible doctrine. 

The word Atonement occurs only once in the New 
Testament, 1 in Rom. v. 11 ; in the new version it does 
not occur at all, but is changed in the above pas- 
sage to reconciliation. The English word simply 
expresses the means whereby it is undertaken to 
bring two parties at variance into harmony, i.e. " to 
set them at one "(Acts vii. 26) ; this is the &t-one- 
ment. In the Bible doctrine the atonement is the 
means whereby man is reconciled to God ; since the 
enmity and alienation are all on the part of man, 
the atonement is entirely for his benefit; and this fact 
is clearly indicated in the original word ; it means 
a thorough change, as from enmity to friendship ; of 
course it can be seen at once that this change is 
entirely on man's side ; he is the one who is to 
change from enmity to friendship. God is not in a 
condition of enmity against man, but man is at 
enmity with God, and in order to establish harmony 
between the two something must be done (not to 
change God, but) to change man, and this is the 
atonement or reconciliation ; the two words in the 

1 We will say a word on the atonement in the Old Testament 
later on. 



176 Bible Harmony. 

New Testament are from the same original. The error, 
then, of speaking of God being reconciled to man 
must be apparent to all ; it is man that must be rec- 
onciled to God — changed from enmity to friendship. 

This truth is still further confirmed by a considera- 
tion of the word Propitiation. The original word 
means to appease, soothe, conciliate ; in Rom. hi. -25 
the apostle declares that God hath set forth Christ to 
be a propitiation. Who is the object and what is the 
purpose of this propitiation? Surely God has not set 
forth Christ to propitiate himself; man is the one to 
be soothed, conciliated, appeased. That this is so is 
made certain by the use of this same word in Heb. 
ix. 5, where it is translated mercy-seat. Who is the 
mercy-seat for, God or man? To ask the question 
is to answer it. Christ is mans mercy-seat, or pro- 
pitiation ; the mercy-seat is for man's benefit solely ; 
and yet according to the popular view the merc}"-seat 
ought to be for God's benefit ; for according to this 
view God is the one to be propitiated, appeased, con- 
ciliated, and since the propitiation is the mercy-seat, 
it would follow that the mercy-seat was for God ; but 
that cannot be ; the mercy-seat is solely and entirely 
for man. The very fact that the propitiation is the 
mercy-seat shows that it must be for man's benefit. 
" He is the propitiation [or mercy-seat] for our sins; 
and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole 
world." 

These considerations bring us to another term. viz. 
Intercession. It is commonly supposed thai Christ 
has to plead with God and intercede in behalf of 



Bible Harmony, 177 

sinful man, implying that God is more or less un- 
willing, and that it requires considerable importun- 
ity to move him favorably toward the sinner. 

Now what is the truth in regard to this word? 
The original word means simply to meet with, con- 
verse with, have dealings with. In Acts xxv. 24 the 
same word is rendered " dealt " ; from this it will be 
seen that the word itself has no such theological 
meaning as is commonly attached to it. Now what 
kind of dealings does Christ have with the Father 
on man's behalf ? Our answer to this question will 
depend on our idea of God ; if we entertain the idea 
taught in the popular theology, we shall think of 
Christ as pleading with a stern and obdurate ruler, 
to soften his austerity and to enlist his mercy in the 
sinner's behalf. I do not say that the creeds put it 
in this way in so many words, but this is the idea 
implied, and practically the belief of the great mass 
of those who accept the creeds. For example, a promi- 
nent evangelist, who has travelled all over the coun- 
try and been invited to all the great churches, and 
has been very successful, as success goes in that occu- 
pation, was in the habit of telling the sinners in his 
audiences that " if Christ were taken out of the way, 
if he should cease his intercessions but for one mo- 
ment, in that moment they would sink into an end- 
less hell under God's wrath and curse." Is it not 
dreadful that God should be thus maligned ? Would 
it not be blasphemous if it were intentional? At 
least, is it not a prodigious error to thus place in the 
most glaring contrast with God (to his utter misrep- 



178 Bible Harmony. 

reservation) him who is the brightness of his glory 
and the express image of his person ? 

He that knoweth God (Jer. ix. 23, 24) will have 
no such idea as the above of the " dealings " that the 
Son has with the Father on man's behalf. The need 
of an intercessor is not because God must be plead 
with to make him willing to pardon the sinner, but 
that man needs encouragement in coming to God ; 
the knowledge that we have a friend at court is for 
our comfort and encouragement; the Father him- 
self loves us (John xvi. 27) ; but that is the last 
thing that we will believe ; and to help us to see that 
blessed truth, Christ is given as a go-between to 
" manifest " (1 John iv. 9) the Father's love ; not 
that the Father without such a go-between would 
love us less or be less gracious and merciful, but we 
need him to introduce us to God. This is the exact 
sense of Eph. ii. 18 and iii. 12. " For through him 
[Christ] we both [Jew and Gentile] have access [i.e. 
an introduction] by one spirit unto the Father." 
Rotherham renders it " introduction." Such in truth 
is the effect of Christ's intercessions. 

This brings us to two more terms in connection 
with this subject, viz. Mediator and Advocate. 
Christ as mediator comes to the sinner, takes him 
by the hand, and leads him to the Father ; as advo- 
cate, he helps him after that he has come. The orig- 
inal word means helper. God's ineffable glory and 
absolute holiness repels sinful man. and he never 
can believe that such a God loves him. So a medi- 
ator comes in between to reveal that love — the 



Bible Harmony. 179 

Man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. ii. 5). We " come 
unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make 
intercession for us" (Heb. vii. 25). He is our ad- 
vocate (helper) with the Father ; not that the Father 
needs a helper, but man needs one; hence God 
" hath laid help upon one that is mighty " (Psalm 
lxxxix. 19), — "mighty to save" — and thus we who 
sometimes were far off are made nigh in the blood 
[life] of Christ." The expression, " an advocate 
with the Father" is very strange from the stand- 
point of orthodoxism. The common theological idea 
of an advocate is the legal one, a pleader with God, 
to propitiate his favor ; and yet he is the Father ! 
an advocate with the Father! Surely, if God is a 
Father in deed and in truth, there needs no one to 
plead before him the cause of his children ; if the 
child has become estranged from the Father for a 
long time, and has become hardened by a vicious life 
and debauched by sin, he may need some one to help 
him back again to his Father, and to make known 
to him the Father's love, still unchanged, and his 
ready willingness to welcome him back again to his 
heart and home ; here is work for a mediator or 
helper , but all for the benefit of the one estranged 
and alienated, not for him who never changed. 

Let us now inquire into the use of the words 
Redemption, Ransom, Purchased, and Bought. " Re- 
deemed by the precious blood of Christ." " He gave 
himself a ransom for all." " Purchased with his 
own blood." " Ye are bought with a price." What 
do these statements mean ? What is the true signifi- 



180 Bible Harmony. 

cance of this commercial aspect of the atonement ? 
The common idea is that man is redeemed, ransomed, 
purchased, and bought from a cruel bondage by a 
price paid down to his master, and there is truth in 
all this ; but we must be careful how we apply the 
various parts of this idea. Who is the master? and 
what is the price ? Fallen man is indeed a slave in 
cruel bondage ; this is certainly scriptural ; but a slave 
to who or to what ? He is a slave to sin (John viii. 
34 ; Rom. vi. 16) ; or, if you please, a slave to Satan, 
since Satan is the embodiment of sin. How then is 
he redeemed? is there a price paid to Satan? is he 
bought from the devil ? Nothing of the kind ; he is 
redeemed from sin, but not by paj-ing a price to 
sin, or to the devil, but by making a sacrifice, which 
sacrifice is the ransom whereby man is delivered 
from the bondage of corruption. God makes the sac- 
rifice, u God in Christ" (Jesus is the Lamb of Grod 
that taketh away the sin of the world). We have 
seen what that sacrifice was, when Jesus left the 
riches and glory which he had with the Father — laid 
off the "form of God," and "took upon himself the 
form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of 
sinful man " (Phil. ii. 6, 7 ; compare Rom. viii. 3), 
and by this sacrifice redeemed, ransomed, purchased, 
and bought the race; bought by the precious blood 
of Christ. Blood is a symbol of life (Dent. xii. 23), 
and it was the life of Christ that was the ransom. 
" He came to give his life a ransom for man v." — 
not his earth life but the life he had with the Father 
before the world was: the life he had already laid 



Bible Harmony. 181 

down when he was here " in the flesh." Jesus did 
not pay over a price to any one ; but he made a great 
sacrifice, which is the price, or the ransom, whereby 
man is redeemed. 

Now all this is fully illustrated by the type of 
Moses redeeming the children of Israel from Egypt. 
Moses is a type of Christ (Acts hi. 22) ; and in Acts 
vii. 35 he is said to be a " deliverer," or redeemer ; 
the original word comes from the same stem as the 
word rendered " ransom " in Matt. xx. 28, and as 
the word rendered " redeem " in 1 Pet. i. 18. Thus 
we see that Moses was a redeemer or ransomer; he 
ransomed the children of Israel from their Egyptian 
bondage. Now how did he ransom them, and what 
was the ransom price paid? No money or anything 
of that kind was paid to the Egyptians whereby they 
were induced to let Israel go ; and yet a ransom was 
paid ; what was it ? It was the sacrifice that Moses 
made in order to become their redeemer and de- 
liverer ; it was the life he gave up as the son of the 
king's daughter, a prince of the house of the Pha- 
raohs, to be identified with an enslaved, degraded 
people, that he might redeem them from their cruel 
bondage. Here is the entire work of redemption in 
type ; thus did Moses redeem, ransom, purchase, and 
buy this people, and was faithful over his house as 
a servant, as Christ was faithful over his house as 
a Son (Heb. hi.). So Christ left the royal courts 
of his Father, the riches and the glory — gave up 
that life, made the sacrifice, and thereby redeemed, 
ransomed, purchased, and bought the race with 



182 Bible Harmony. 

his own precious blood [life] ; it was not a commer- 
cial operation ; the payment, and consequent absolute 
forfeiture of a certain price to a definite person, in 
exchange for which man is handed over to Jesus 
Christ as his new owner; such a view as this will 
lead us into all sorts of errors ; for we shall be 
searching round for the price that Jesus paid — the 
life he gave and never took back again, and for the 
one to whom the price was paid, etc. Some have an 
idea that this price was paid to the devil ; others 
that it was paid to God ; at any rate — 

" Jesus paid it all, all the debt I owe," and the 
payment was to " satisfy God's justice " and reconcile 
him to man ; and thus I owe my salvation to Jesus, 
and to him alone ; for if the debt of justice is paid, 
then I owe God nothing ; thus Jesus is my Redeemer 
and friend ; but God is a hard creditor, a very Shy- 
lock, who must have his bond before he will release 
the debtor. This is all a great mistake ; surely no 
one can fail of seeing how utterly wrong this view 
must be. The price paid for man's redemption is 
Christ's sacrifice ; the price is paid to no one, but is 
simply a sacrifice made, — a life laid down, — just as a 
mother might sacrifice herself for her child, or a 
friend for a friend; "but Grod commendeth his love 
toward us, in that while we were vet enemies Christ 
died for us"; and thus we are "redeemed, not with 
silver and gold, but by the precious blood of Jesus 
as of a Lamb [the Lamb of 6rW] without spot or 
blemish." 



Bible Harmony. 183 

THE ATONEMENT AS TYPIFIED IN THE LAW. 

We will now notice how the foregoing view is 
confirmed b}^ the typical presentation of the atone- 
ment in the law. 

" For the law having a shadow of good things to 
come, and not the very image of the things, can 
never with those sacrifices, which they offered year 
by year continually, make the comers therennto per- 
fect; for then would they not have ceased to be 
offered ? because that the worshippers once purged 
should have had no more conscience of sins ; but in 
those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of 
sin every year ; for it is not possible that the blood 
of bulls and of goats should take away sins ; where- 
fore, when he [Jesus] cometh into the world, he 
saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a 
body hast thou prepared me ; in burnt offerings and 
sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure ; then 
said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is 
written of me) to do thy will, O God " (Heb. x. 1-7). 

Here is Paul's comment on the typical character 
of the law of the atonement; it was a shadow — only 
a shadow, not the very image — of good things to 
come; those good things began to be realized when 
Christ came to do God's will ; then the real purpose 
of the atonement began to appear; Paul indicates 
that real purpose as being to " take away sins " which 
the blood of bulls and of goats could not do. 

A full account of the ceremonies of the atonement 
day will be found in Lev. xvi. I shall not attempt 



184 Bible Harmony. 

to apply all the details of this type, but only call 
attention to a few points in confirmation of that view 
of the atonement already presented. 

The first fact I would call attention to is, that there 
is nothing in all this legal ceremony of the penalty of 
sin. In the popular doctrine of the atonement, the 
great effort is to show how the sinner may escape the 
penalty of sin. We have already noticed that this is 
not the object of the atonement, — to save the sinner 
from the penalty of sin, — but to save him from sin 
itself; and this view is fully confirmed by the type 
in which the penalty for sin is not referred to at all. 
There is not in the law the least hint or the most 
distant reference to the idea that the atonement was 
a means whereby the children of Israel were to be 
freed from the penalty of the broken law, or released 
from any merited punishment ; if this is the purpose 
of the atonement as taught in the New Testament, 
then it is surely a most remarkable thing that there 
is not the slightest allusion to any such thing in the 
typical atonement under the law. 

What, then, was the purpose of the atonement 
under the law? Just exactly what it is under the 
gospel — to put away sin. We are distinctly told 
that the bullock and the two goats were a sin offer- 
ing; that is to say, they represented the sin that was 
to be put away ; they did not represent the penalty, 
nor did they represent a substitute 1 who was to re- 
ceive the penalty in the place of the sinner: neither 
were they an offering to appease the one sinned 
against, but they represented the sin itself that was 



Bible Harmony. 185 

to be slain, destroyed, and put away. Both animals, 
the "Lord's goat" and the "scapegoat," were one 
sin offering, and the way each was treated shows how 
God deals with sin. The Lord's goat is slain, its 
blood is shed, and the carcass burned " without the 
camp " ; thus it is utterly destroyed ; this shows how 
sin is dealt with on God's part ; it is put out of exist- 
ence — so thoroughly pardoned that it becomes as 
though it had never been, and the sinner is accepted 
as though he had always been sinless ; no offering but 
the sin offering was thus utterly destroyed; portions 
were reserved for food, etc. ; but the sin offering was 
to be slain, its blood poured out, and the carcass, 
" together with the skin, the flesh, and the dung," 
was to be burned without the camp. All this pre- 
figures how God deals Avith sin. It is destroyed, 
utterly and forever. The Lord says, " I am he that 
blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, 
and will not remember thy sins " ; and again, " Your 
sins and iniquities will I remember no more forever." 
Thus God forgives and utterly annihilates the sin so 
far as he himself is concerned ; it is gone, abolished, 
consigned to eternal oblivion ; this forgiveness has 
nothing to do with the punishment for sin ; that may 
still be inflicted, because it is for the good of the 
offender ; as all of God's chastisements are for his 
creature's good ; but the sin itself is destroyed, 
"cast behind his back " (Isa. xxxviii. 17). We have 
a very striking illustration of all this in the life of 
King David, in connection with the great sin that he 
committed of adultery and murder (2 Sam. xii). 



186 Bible Harmony. 

Nathan the prophet comes in to tell him of his sin, 
for up to that time he seems to have been strangely 
oblivions to the enormity of his transgression ; Na- 
than relates the story of the rich man and his poor 
neighbor ; and when David's indignation and resent- 
ment is aroused against the former, Nathan turns 
upon him with the startling words, " Thou art the 
man " ; those words tear away the mask, and David, 
the base adulterer and murderer, stands revealed — 
himself to himself; but with this shameful and 
humiliating self-knowledge comes a sense of contri- 
tion and deep sorrow for his dreadful sin, and with 
this feeling strong upon him he murmurs, "I have 
sinned." Quickly, as the mouthpiece of the Lord, 
Nathan responds, " The Lord also hath put away thy 
sin." There, that was the end of it on the Lord's 
part, so far as the sin itself was concerned ; no more 
was said about it; it was never flung in his face 
again ; he was never reminded of it ; the enormity of 
the sin did not prevent its instantaneous pardon, and 
when pardoned it was " put away," as though it had 
never been committed. David himself did not get 
over it so easily; God forgave him instantaneously 
and perfectly ; but it was a long time, if ever, before 
David could forgive himself; this is apparent from 
some of the Psalms that he afterwards wrote (see 
especially the fifty-first); his deep humiliation and 
self-accusings are expressed by the words, "1 ac- 
knowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever 
before me." Nor did he escape the penalty o( his 
transgression ; bitterly did he suffer in his person and 



Bible Harmony. 187 

in his family ; but the sin itself, on God's part, had 
been entirely "put away." Such is the perfect, 
thorough, and absolute forgiveness of God. " He will 
abundantly pardon." Well may we exclaim, in view 
of such divine graciousness and infinite magnanimity : 
" Who is a Go'd like unto thee, that pardoneth 
iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the rem- 
nant of his heritage ? He retaineth not his anger for- 
ever, because he clelighteth in mercy. He will turn 
again, he will have compassion on us ; he will subdue 
our iniquities, and thou wilt cast all their sins into 
the depths of the sea." 

Such, if I err not, is the typical significance of 
" the Lord's goat " in the atonement. 

But forgiveness is not enough to effect a thorough 
reconciliation between man and God. The offended 
one may freely pardon, but while the offender feels 
the burden of his guilt, while he is still conscious of 
his baseness and degradation, he cannot feel comfort- 
able, or happy, or at rest ; it is not enough that the 
offended one should forgive and forget the offence ; 
the offending one must be delivered from his guilt ; 
he must be separated from his sin, so to speak ; its 
weight must be lifted from him ; the incubus re- 
moved, and thus delivered from himself, as it were, he 
is able to emerge from the gloomy depths of guilt 
and shame in which his self-consciousness involves 
him, out into the sunshine of God's grace and love ; 
this is man reconciled to God. 

Now all this is prefigured in the scapegoat. Let it 
be remembered that the sin offering represented the 



188 Bible Harmony. 

sin. Sin is the victim that is to be slain and de- 
stroyed. A sin offering thus viewed as representing 
the sin of the offerer — surcharged, as it were, with 
sin — was considered an unclean thing, and the car- 
cass, after that the blood had been poured out at the 
altar, was to be burned without the camp as an un- 
holy thing, unfit to come into the midst of God's 
people ; and the person who performed this office of 
disposing of the dead carcass of the sin offering was 
himself unclean, and must remain so for a certain 
time before he could return into the camp. Thus the 
sin offering, representing the sin itself, was looked 
upon as polluted and polluting. This fact is brought 
out in all the sin offerings, but especially in connec- 
tion with the scapegoat. 

The Hebrew word rendered scapegoat is " Az- 
azel" (see margin of Lev. xvi. 8), which literally 
means averter. The scapegoat was the averter; he 
averted or warded off calamity by bearing away the 
sins of the people. The only possible cause of suffer- 
ing in God's universe is sin; when sin is put away — 
when we are separated therefrom — then all calamity 
is averted, because all possible cause of calamity is 
removed. This was the function of this second goat 
of the sin offering ; hence it was called the averter. 

"And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the 
head of the live goat, and confess upon him all the 
iniquities of the children of Israel and all their 
transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon 
the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the 
hand of a fit man into the wilderness; ami the goat 



Bible Harmony. 189 

shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land 
not inhabited." 

Here is the type : is it not plain that the scape- 
goat represented the sin of the people, and that what 
was done with the scapegoat represents what will 
ultimately be done with sin ? Bear in mind that the 
scapegoat was only another phase of one and the 
same sin offering ; the Lord's goat was slain, repre- 
senting the Lord's abundant pardon, and his attitude 
of perfect forgiveness and entire forgetfulness of the 
sin ; the scapegoat was loaded down with the sin of 
the people and then let loose in the wilderness, " into 
a land not inhabited," thus bearing away the sins of 
the people and separating them therefrom. So sin 
will be destroyed and man delivered therefrom by 
the great antitypical atonement through Jesus Christ. 
Now see how perfectly the antitype corresponds to 
the type. 

Christ is the antitype of the entire sin offering; 
and we read that " the Lord hath made the iniquity 
of us all to meet on him " (Isa. liii. 6, margin), just 
as it did upon the head of the scapegoat. 

" He bare the sin of many." 

" Behold the Lamb of God that beareth away the 
sin of the world " (John i. 29, margin). 

" Christ was once offered to bear the sins of 
many." 

" Who his own self bear our sins in his own body 
on the tree." 

He did not bear the penalty of our sins — our pun- 
ishment — as our substitute ; but he bore our sins ; in 



190 Bible Harmony. 

him they were destroyed; by him the} 7 were put 
away. " He was made SIN for us." How strange 
is this statement ! He was not made a sinner or sin- 
ful ; this could not be done without dest^dng his 
character as the spotless Lamb of God ; but he was 
made sin and a curse (Gal. hi. 13), and as an ac- 
cursed and unholy thing, a " body of death," he 
passed " the days of his flesh," and finally suffered 
without the gate, as the antitype of the dead carcass 
of the sin offering (Heb. xiii. 11-13). Thus was 
Christ made sin ; thus is God's judgment on sin ex- 
hibited and his attitude toward the sinner set forth ; 
thus is man's deliverance from sin prefigured and his 
reconciliation to God fully secured. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

" WHAT IS MAN ? " 

This question is so important that it is five times 
asked in the Bible. First in the book of Job vii. 17, 
— " What is man, that thou shouldst magnify, and 
that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him?" 
Again in Job xv. 14, — " What is man, that he should 
be clean, and he that is born of a woman, that he 
should be righteous?" Also in Psa. viii. 4, — "What 
is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of 
man, that thou visitest him ? " Again in Psa. cxliv. 
3, — " Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge 
of him, or the son of man, that thou makest account 
of him ? " Finally in Heb. ii. 6, the same as in Psa. 
viii. 4. A question so oft repeated in Holy Writ is 
doubtless important ; what is the significance of this 
question, why is it asked, and what is the answer? 

If we should answer the question according to a 
matter-of-fact view of the actual condition of things 
in the world to-day we should say that man, con- 
sidered as a whole, is a poor, miserable creature ; he 
appears to be a failure, a wretched abortion ; he is 
a beast of burden, an oppressed slave, a toiling, ill- 
requited, down-troclden bond-servant, ignorant, god- 
less, corrupt, and wicked. I speak of the masses ; of 
course we should judge of the race by the majority ; 

191 



192 Bible Harmony. 

take mankind as a whole, civilized, heathen, barba- 
rous, and savage, and the above description is not so 
dark as the reality. Here is a brief presentation of 
this point from the new book " Ecce Venit," by Dr. 
Gordon of Boston : " Unless one is completely in the 
spell of a delusive optimism, he must often be ap- 
palled in contemplating the condition of the world. 
A thousand millions of the race still strangers to any 
form of Christianity; two-thirds of nominal Chris- 
tendom lapsed into an apostasy hardly better than 
paganism ; and of the remaining third, only a meagre 
proportion really spiritual disciples ! Without, the 
whole world lying in the wicked one ; and within, 
perpetual corruptions of doctrine, constant estrange- 
ments from the faith, daily reprisals of the prince of 
darkness upon the domain of light." This picture is 
not overdrawn; it is not painted too dark; it exactly 
expresses the truth, and is in perfect accordance 
with the scripture which saith that " darkness covers 
the earth, and gross darkness the people " : and 
again, " the whole world lieth in wickedness." 

If you would see a word picture of man's degraded 
condition drawn out in all its awful hideousness by 
an inspired pen, read the first chapter of Romans : also 
Rom. iii. 9-19, margin. This is the answer to the ques- 
tion, What is man? from the standpoint of matter of 
fact, and this is in harmony with the answer given 
in the Bible. " Man is like to vanity ; his days are 
as a shadow that passeth away " (Psa. cxliv. 4). 

But if this is a truthful presentation of the general 
condition of man, how does this fact affect the charac- 



Bible Harmony. 193 

ter of God, man's Creator ; it certainly seems to 
reflect discredit and impute dishonor to his name. 
Man is represented in the Bible to be the crowning 
glory of God's creation. He is made only a little 
lower than the angels; he is crowned with glory 
and honor, and is given dominion over the works 
of God's hands (Psa. viii.) ; thus is he represented ; 
but the reality does not bear out the representation. 
Man's period of innocence and uprightness was very 
short apparently ; upon the very first opportunity he 
sinned, and so " fell," was driven from the garden, 
excluded from the tree of life, and sent forth a va- 
grant upon the face of the earth. The first man born 
of human parents was a murderer. Enoch walked 
with God three hundred years ; but while he was thus 
living in most blessed communion with his Maker, 
the world was growing more and more corrupt, ripen- 
ing for that dread visitation of God's wrath which in 
the days of Noah was to swallow up the race. When 
the flood came, the earth was filled with corruption 
and violence, and every imagination of the thoughts 
of man's heart was only evil continually ; out of that 
generation the number fit to be preserved in the ark 
was very small; and God even speaks as though 
Noah was the only one in that generation who could 
be called righteous (Gen. vii. 1) ; and the Lord even 
goes so far as to declare that it repented him that he 
had made man. Does not all this wretched failure 
seem to reflect discredit upon God ? To say nothing 
of man's responsibility and guilt, does it not seem that 
the outcome of God's original creation, and the first 



194 Bible Harmony. 

sixteen hundred years of man's trial, showed a lack 
somehow, and a failure or a blunder on the part of the 
Creator? And yet the history of that first sixteen 
hundred years has simply been repeated over and over 
again ever since ; man's way has ever been downward ; 
failure is stamped upon all his works and ways. What 
a striking illustration we have of this in the history of 
the Israelites ! Think how much was laid out upon 
them in order to make something of them. What 
a splendid chance they had ! What promises, what 
blessings, what wonderful works God wrought out in 
their behalf! They were God's "peculiar treasure," 
his special people ; and how did they turn out ? Their 
history is one long, uninterrupted, unmitigated 
failure ; until finally they filled up the measure of 
their cup of iniquity by crucifying their own Mes- 
siah, and were cut off and cast aside as a dead 
and withered branch. And now I ask again how 
does this failure look from God's standpoint? To 
say nothing of Israel's guilt (and they became worse 
and more guilty even than the surrounding heathen 
nations, Ezek. xvi. 44-52), does it not look as 
though the Creator had made a great failure? He 
was their Father, their King, their Maker, and their 
Husband (Isa. liv. 5), their Shepherd and Great 
Deliverer. He bore them on eagle's wings, he com- 
forted them as a mother, he rejoiced over them as a 
bridegroom over his bride, he supported them as a 
staff; lie seemingly lavished all the resources of 
heaven upon them, and apparently did his utmost 
to make something errand and noble and good o( 



Bible Harmony. 195 

them, and after all — shall we say he failed ? Does 
it not look so ? It certainly does ; it appears as 
though God tried to make something extra of this 
people, and instead of succeeding the result was 
that they were worse than the surrounding heathen 
nations. Was not God dishonored by this failure ? It 
certainly appears so, and he acknowleges it as we 
have already noticed. Suppose you take the chil- 
dren of Israel as a fair sample of the race, and ask 
the question, What is man? and take their history as 
an answer; certainly, the answer would seem to be 
anything but creditable either to man or to his 
Maker. The history of Israel is the history of the 
world ; every nation has walked in the same down- 
ward path ; the nations of antiquity have perished 
in their own corruption, and modern nations seem to 
be travelling the same way. In the light of these 
facts it is certainly a very humiliating answer that 
we have to give to the question, What is man ? 

Let us now consider the scriptural answer to this 
question as given in Psa. viii. " What is man, that 
thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that 
thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little 
lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with 
glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion 
over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all 
things under his feet." 

The above answer does not seem to be borne out by 
matter of fact, as we have already seen ; or must we 
conclude that this description simply applies to man 
as he was originally created, but that he has fallen 



196 Bible Harmony. 

from that high estate to become the wretched, 
miserable creature that we see him to-day? No ; this 
scripture is a faithful description of man as he will be 
when finished. That this view is the correct one is 
made plainly apparent by the comment on this scrip- 
ture in the second chapter of Hebrews. 

" For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection 
the world to come, whereof we speak ; but one in a 
certain place testified, saying, What is man, that 
thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou 
visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than 
[or, margin, a little while inferior to] the angels ; 
thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst 
set him over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put 
all things in subjection under his feet ; for in that he 
put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that 
is not put under him. But now we see not yet all 
things put under him ; but we see Jesus, who was 
made a little lower than the angels for the suffering 
of death, that he by the grace of God should taste 
death for every man." 

In the above passage it will be seen that Psa. viii. is 
quoted with comments and explanation. The state- 
ment that all things are put in subjection under man 
is accepted in its full force, and even strengthened by 
the comment that, "in that he put all in subjection 
under him, he left nothing that is not put under him." 
Then the apparent untruthfulness of this statement 
is explained, and the fulfilment of it is thrown for- 
ward into the future by the next clause, — kk But now 
we see not yet all things put under him." This clause 



Bible Harmony. 197 

is a full explanation of the apparently untruthful 
statements in regard to man, and is also a confirmation 
of the principle stated and applied in chap, iv., viz. 
that of mystic prophecy, or God speaking of things 
that are not as though they were (Rom. iv. 17). The 
passage in Psa. viii. is a mystic prophecy; it reads as 
though it referred to something in the past ; and so 
understood it seems to contradict facts, for at no time 
in the past history of the race would this description 
apply to man as a whole. But this passage in Hebrews 
makes all plain, — " we see not yet all things put 
under man." In Psa. viii. the Lord is speaking of 
things that are not as though they were, just as when 
he said to childless Abraham, " A father of many 
nations have I made thee." This is a very important 
and instructive point, and should be noticed espe- 
cially for two reasons. It fully confirms the principle 
noticed above; that is, the principle of mystic proph- 
ecy, or God speaking of things that are not as though 
they were ; a principle that will be found to throw 
light on many a dark place of scripture. The illus- 
tration of this principle given in chap. iv. might be 
doubted on the ground that we have no scriptural 
authority for applying it to the first account of the 
creation ; but no such objection can be brought to 
the above illustration ; in this case the apostle ap- 
plies the principle himself ; for after quoting the 
prophecy just as we find it in the Old Testament, 
and even making it stronger, as we have noticed, he 
plainly indicates how it is to be understood by the 
clause, " But now we see not yet all things put under 



198 Bible Harmony. 

him " ; that is to say, although the Lord speaks as 
though the action were in the past, yet the language 
is prophetic, and its fulfilment in the future. 

Furthermore, this scripture assures us that man is 
not on the downward, but on the upward path. The 
truth is not that man was created perfect and given 
universal dominion, and that having fallen, the best 
that God can do now is to save a portion of the race ; 
but man is in process of creation ; he has " not yet " 
reached perfection ; he is still unfinished, crude, and 
rough, and "the perfect day" is not in the past, 
but in the future ; the race is not going from perfec- 
tion, but towards it. It makes a great deal of differ- 
ence whether we look backward or forward for the 
" perfect man." This passage in Hebrews points us 
forward. Thank God for it ! Man — the race — is 
yet to be crowned with glory and honor, and set over 
the works of God's hands, and all things put in 
subjection under him; the perfection of the race is 
yet in the future, and it ivill be accomplished ; for in 
the mystic prophecy quoted, the mouth of the Lord 
hath spoken it ; and he hath spoken of it in such a 
way as to make assurance double sure ; for when 
the Lord delivers himself in this style, calling those 
things that be not as though they were, he speaks as 
" the Almighty God" (Gen. xvii. 1), and his word is 
absolutely sure ; for " God is not a man that he should 
lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. 
Hath he said, and shall he not do it. or hath he 
spoken, and shall he not make it good?" Hence, 
so sure is it that man shall ultimatelj become the 



Bible Harmony. 199 

master of God's creation, that God speaks of it as 
already done ; and as a further pledge thereof the 
apostle points us to Jesus. 

But now we see not yet all things put under man, 
but we see Jesus. Well, what of that ? Jesus was 
pure, immaculate, unsinning. It is right that all 
things should be put in subjection under him. But 
what has that to do with corrupt, fallen, sinful man? 
Just this : Jesus is the pattern man of God's finished 
creation. He is the sample, the standard, the model 
after whom all the rest are to be fashioned; hence 
the significance of these three words — we see Jesus. 
Not yet is the race perfected ; not yet are all things 
put under man; but we see Jesus; he is finished, 
perfected, completed, and this fact is the assurance 
and pledge of the ultimate perfection of the race. 
Let not the reader fail to catch the deep significance 
and universal sweep of this passage ; it is of the 
highest importance, and gloriously satisfactory. Let 
us go over it again briefly. 

Unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the 
world to come, whereof we speak, but he hath put 
that world in subjection under man. But is man 
worthy of such a trust ? is he fit for it ? Yes ; for 
he is God's masterpiece, the crowning glory of his 
creation ; for only a little while was he made lower 
than the angels ; the Lord has crowned him with 
glory and honor, has set him over the works of his 
hands, and all things has he put in subjection under 
him. But how can you speak thus of man ? poor 
fallen, degraded man? He is not such a being; nor 



200 Bible Harmony. 

is he in any such condition as is here described ; nor 
has there ever been a time when this description 
would apply to man — the race. Oh, but this descrip- 
tion does not apply to any past condition of things,* 
but it is a prophecy of the future ; we see not yet all 
things put under man. Ah, how shall I know, then, 
that man ever will reach such a glorious and exalted 
condition? How can I believe it, in view of man's 
past failure and his present degradation? "Why, 
look at Jesus ! Has he not been through the whole 
process of creation and reached perfection ? We see 
him crowned with glory and honor, and his triumph 
is the promise and the pledge of the final deliverance 
of " the whole creation." " For it became him, for 
whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in 
bringing many sons into glory, to make the captain 
of their salvation perfect through sufferings ; for 
both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified 
are all of one ; for which cause he is not ashamed to 
call them brethren." Thus Jesus is the great rep- 
resentative man, — the forerunner, the beginning, the 
firstfruit ; and " if the firstfruit be I10I3', the lump 
is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the 
branches." 

This view gives Christ his proper place in the 
economy of God. He is "the beginning o( the crea- 
tion of God" (Rev. iii. 14), in that he is the first 
human being finished, perfected: as such he becomes 
the pattern and model of the race; so that when ii is 
asked, What is man? il is perfectly proper to point to 
Jesus as the answer, because lie is the only man thai 



Bible Harmony. 201 

has thus far been finished. Suppose a mechanic 
is making a great many machines ; he has a vast 
amount of raw material on hand ; some of the 
machines are partly made, and they lie about the 
factory in endless confusion apparently, and in all 
stages of completion ; you enter and look around 
bewildered ; you can see no order or plan, and you 
ask, " What are you trying to do here ? what are you 
making ? " " Come with me," says the master, and 
he takes you to a room by itself and shows you one of 
the machines completed, in perfect operation, turn- 
ing out the intended product. " There," says the 
master, " that is what I'm making," and he proceeds 
to explain ; the master shows you a specimen of his 
finished work when you ask him of his craft. Just 
in the same way and for the same reason the apostle 
points to Christ, when the question is asked, What 
is man ? " Looking unto Jesus," we can see what 
man will be when finished. 

How blessed and encouraging is all this ! Sad, in- 
deed, would be the prospect of man's future from his 
own standpoint ; but taking Jesus as the pattern of 
the finished man, we may look forward with a perfect 
hope to the future — to the time when all things in 
heaven and in earth shall be gathered together in 
him. The Lord says by the prophet, " I will make 
Man more precious than fine gold ; even A Common 
Man than the golden wedge of Ophir " (Isa. xiii. 
12 ; Young). We may well believe this since Jesus 
is the model. We have seen what man is now, and 
we know of how little account a common man, a 



202 Bible Harmony. 

single individual, is in the world ; but the Lord says, 
" I will make man [mankind, the race] more precious 
than fine gold ; even a common man [each single in- 
dividual] than the golden wedge of Ophir." " Be- 
hold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes 
shall rule in judgment ; and A Man shall be an hid- 
ing place from the wind, and a covert from the tem- 
pest ; as rivers of Avater in a dry place ; as the shadow 
of a great rock in a weary land." 

This is spoken of the finished man ; we have not 
reached that state yet; that which is perfect has not 
yet come. Man as yet is only passing through one 
stage of his creation ; like the frog that first must be 
a tadpole, and have an existence as such before it 
can develop into the perfect animal ; like the butterfly 
that must first be an unsightly grub. So man is yet 
in the grub condition, — a mere tadpole, unfinished, 
crude, and in the rough. There are no men as yet; 
there never have been any except " that Man " 
(Acts xvii. 31) whom God the Father sealed and 
sent into the world, making him " perfect through 
sufferings," and thereby " the beginning of the cre- 
ation of God." 



CHAPTER IX. 



FEEE WILL. 



To much that has already been presented in this 
volume it might be objected that, according to these 
views, man is a mere machine, a puppet in the hands 
of God, — an automaton moving only as he is moved. 
In answer to such a. possible objection, and in the 
further elucidation of the subject of man's creation, 
we should study the subject of man's free will to 
determine, if we may, wherein he is free and respon- 
sible and to what extent. Such a study involves the 
doctrine of man's so-called 

FREE MORAL AGENCY. 

This phrase is not a scriptural one, but it is sup- 
posed that the idea it represents is scriptural; i.e. 
man is a free moral agent; in fact, it is generally 
supposed that the absolute freedom of man must be 
admitted, or else his responsibility is destroyed alto- 
gether, and, as already intimated, he is reduced to 
an automaton. 

An agent is an actor, one who is able to act; a, free 
agent is one who can act as he pleases, without any 
restraint ; a free moral agent is one who is free to act 
as he pleases on all moral questions ; i.e. all questions 
involving the qualities of right and wrong. Now I 

203 



204 Bible Harmony. 

do not hesitate to declare that, in the ordinary accep- 
tation of the phrase, man is not a free moral agent ; 
he is not free to act as he pleases, but rather is it true 
that man's actions are entirely under God's control. 
We will give abundance of Bible proof of this pres- 
ently, but now I hasten to say that although the 
above is most certainly true, yet it does not follow 
therefrom that man is a machine, with no freedom 
or responsibility at all. The simple truth, if I err 
not, is that man's freedom inheres, not in his actions, 
but in his volitions ; he is a free moral chooser, but 
not a free moral actor. Abundance of proof of this 
has already been presented in preceding chapters. 
God worketh all things after the counsel of his own 
will. We have seen how true this is, and yet it 
could not be true if man had power to act contrary 
to the will of God or in spite of his will. If the 
reader will stop and think a moment, he will perceive 
that God must have a controlling influence over 
man's actions, or else he could not work all things 
after the counsel of his own will; it would not be 
true that "of him and through him and to him are 
all things." But we have seen that these scriptures 
are true, thoroughly and absolutely true ; hence man 
is not a free agent, but his will is free ; he may 
propose and choose as he pleases, but God controls 
the outward act. Now let us notice some scriptural 
illustrations of this point. 

Take the case related in Acts wiii. The Jews 
were bitterly incensed against Paul, and determined 
to kill him. So bent upon his destruction were they 



Bible Harmony. 205 

that more than forty of them banded together under 
a great curse that they would neither eat nor drink 
until they had killed him. I do not know whether 
these wicked Jews kept their oath or not, but if they 
did they starved to death, for they never killed the 
apostle. They were murderers in the sight of God, 
just as much as though they had committed the deed ; 
but he would not allow them to carry their wicked 
purpose into action. The very night on which these 
forty Jews had formed their murderous purpose, the 
Lord had stood hy the apostle and said, " Be of good 
cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified of me in Jeru- 
salem, so must thou bear witness also in Rome." God's 
word was thus passed to the apostle, assuring him 
that he had no immediate cause for alarm, and map- 
ping out his future service. Would God allow forty 
Jews to thwart his purpose, or cause his word to fail? 
No ; nor forty million of them. Paul is delivered, 
and God's word comes to pass, as is written, "My 
counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." 
But why did not God interfere to save Paul's 
life later on from wicked Nero ? Because the apos- 
tle's work was done then and he could glorify God in 
such a death. Paul wrote his second letter to Tim- 
othy from a Roman dungeon, while awaiting execu- 
tion, in which he exclaims, "I am now ready to be 
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand ; I 
have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith; I 
\nive finished my course; henceforth there is laid up 
for me a crown of righteousness." Thus God work- 
eth all things after the counsel of his own will. 



206 Bible Harmony. 

" Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the 
remainder thou wilt restrain." The wrath of those 
forty Jews, God restrained, because at that time the 
death of Paul would not have been to God's praise ; 
but the wrath of Nero was allowed to fully vent 
itself, because then Paul's mission was accomplished, 
and by Iris death (as by his life) he could then glorify 
God. Man may purpose or determine what he pleases, 
and as he purposes so is he judged. " For that he 
hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the 
Lord, therefore shall he eat of the fruit of his own 
way and be filled with his own devices." 

Now let us notice further how clearly this view is 
set forth in the Book of Proverbs. " The ways of 
man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponder- 
eth all his goings." "A man's heart deviseth his 
way, but the Lord directeth his steps." " There are 
many devices in a man's heart, nevertheless the 
counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." Now mark 
the next passage. " Man's goings are of the Lord ; 
how can a man, then, understand his own way?" 
Again, " The king's heart is in the hand of the 
Lord; as the rivers of water he turneth it whither- 
soever he will." And finally, we have the whole 
doctrine in a single sentence, — "The lot is cast 
into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is ot 
the Lord." This is a scriptural version of the old 
maxim, "Man proposes, but God disposes," and tins 
is just exactly the truth. The lot is cast into the 
lap; yon have your choice ; yon may plan and pur- 
pose as von please, "l>i<( the whole disposing thereof is 



Bible Harmony. 207 

of the Lord." Do not forget that. God may allow 
you to carry out your purposes and plans and he 
may not; it all depends upon whether he can over- 
rule it for good and work it into Ids plans ; for 
"surely the wrath of man shall praise him, and the 
remainder [what he cannot overrule to his praise] he 
will restrain." 

There are two other passages in this same line that 
Ave will notice (Psa. xxxvii. 23, 24). I have read this 
passage many times, and in former years taken it for 
a text, laying great stress upon the word "good." 
" The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." 
It is only of late years that I noticed, while reading 
Dr. Young's translation of the Old Testament, that 
the word " good " is not in the original. This is also 
indicated in our common version by that word being 
in italics. The passage is general, not particular: 
" The steps of a man [any man, all men] are ordered 
by the Lord." Young renders it thus : " From Je- 
hovah are the steps of a man ; they [his steps] have 
been prepared, and his way he [i.e. God] desireth; 
when he falleth he is not cast down, for Jehovah is 
sustaining his hand." Man goes the way that God 
desireth; his steps have been prepared beforehand 
and are all ordered of the Lord. This passage is in 
perfect harmony with those quoted above from the 
Book of Proverbs. 

I will call attention to one more passage to the 
same effect (Jer. x. 23). "O Lord, I know that the 
way of man is not in himself ; it is not in man that 
walketh to direct his steps." Young renders it, " I 



208 Bible Harmony. 

have known, O Jehovah, that not of man is his way, 
not of man the going and establishing of his steps." 

Is it not plain, is it not absolutely certain from 
these scriptures, that man is not a free agent (actor) ? 
A man's ways are " of the Lord," let him be or do 
what he may. " A man's heart de viseth his way, but 
the Lord directeth his steps." Mankind are God's 
tools and weapons ; the wicked are his sword (Psa. 
xvii. 13). He uses them as the carpenter uses his 
axe and saw (Isa. x. 15). "He worketh all things 
after the counsel of his own will." Thank God for 
the knowledge ! With such a God one may rest 
assured under the shadow of his wing. Not a spar- 
row falls, not a hair of thine head shall be touched, 
not an event transpires, not a dog shall move his 
tongue (Ex. xi. 7), but according to the will of the 
Almighty. Man may choose and plan and purpose, 
and he will be judged accordingly; — filled with his 
own devices — but his way, his outward acts are 
entirely under God's control. This is the Bible doc- 
trine of man's free will, and thus is man's responsi- 
bility and God's sovereignty reconciled. 

But this is not the whole doctrine of man's free- 
dom. It goes further and penetrates deeper than 
this. If man has the power as intimated in the fore- 
going to oppose his will against God (although God 
controls his acts), how do we know but thai sonic 
may be opposed to God through all eternity? And 
if so, then God will not be able to subdue all things 
unto himself, and to reconcile all things in heaven 
and earth to his Son. In this case some may stand 



Bible Harmony. 209 

before God, hardened and incorrigible, defiant and 
unyielding, forever. He will never be able to subdue 
their stubborn wills, and even though he may crush 
them, still they will be unconquered. Is it so? or 
will God be able, literally and absolutely, to subdue 
all things unto himself, and reconcile all things, so 
that at last he will be "all in all"? Unless this 
latter view is the truth, then it would seem that God 
fails ; his resources are inadequate ; the provision for 
man's recovery is not " much more " (Rom. v.), bat 
less than enough to undo the effects of the fall. 

The question is this : Will God be able to induce 
all men ultimately to voluntarily choose "the good 
part " ? Without invading their freedom, as explained 
above, will God be able to bring all into harmony 
with himself, so that at last every knee shall bow 
and every tongue shall give praise to God (Rom. 
xiv. 11) ? I most certainly believe that he will, and 
for the reasons following. 

In the first place, the scriptures quoted in abun- 
dance both in this chapter and in former chapters, 
necessarily imply that God will ultimately subdue 
all things unto himself ; for how otherwise could he 
work all things after the counsel of his own will? 
No human will will be able to withstand the divine 
will. He will find a way to conquer every heart. 

But perhaps some one will say that at this rate 
man's freedom is destroyed altogether ; according to 
this idea not only man's acts, but his will also, is 
under God's control, so that he has no liberty at all. 
It might appear to be so at first thought, but two 



210 Bible Harmony. 

considerations make it plain how God will be able to 
influence every will in harmony with his own, and 
yet invade no man's freedom. First, the eternal 
fitness of things. Man will voluntarily choose the 
right at last, because he was made for the right in 
the first place, and to suppose that he will remain 
eternally wrong, is to suppose that God's creation 
will fail of reaching the end intended, a position that 
would involve the failure of the Creator rather than 
the creature. As the fish was made for the water, 
and the bird for the air, so man was made for God, — 
God's life is his proper element — godlikeness is the 
end for which he was created, and he will reach that 
end as sure as God's word and work never fails. 
Man will be brought at last to choose the right be- 
cause it is right, and he will see that it is right, and 
that the right is best. This will be brought about by 
the enlightening power of God; it is written that 
" all shall know the Lord " ; now the great mass of 
the world are in ignorance — " darkness covers the 
earth, and gross darkness the people " ; but the time 
will come when "the knowledge of the Lord will 
cover the earth as the waters cover the seas," when 
the kingdom is the Lord's and he is the governor 
among the nations. When man is thus enlightened 
to know the Lord he will know the right ; and know- 
ing it, he will choose it of his own free will. 

There is an objection to this argument drawn from 
the analogy of nature ; it is said that a vast number 
of individuals in God's creation tail of reaching perfec- 
tion; they perish at sonic stage o( their development 



Bible Harmony, 211 

and never reach maturity. Hence it is alleged that 
it is not strange, nor at all out of keeping with God's 
ways, if some individuals of the human race fall short 
of perfection. To this objection I would reply first, 
that the above argument does not depend on the rule 
that all God's creatures reach maturity, but that they 
all answer the end of their creation, which is a very 
different thing. Judging from observation (and in 
the absence of any revelation on this point, this is all 
we have to judge from), we should say that it is not 
God's purpose that every individual of the lower 
orders of creation should reach maturity; whether 
they live an hour or a day, or perish in the germ, 
they accomplish the end of their creation ; they fill 
the niche in God's economy that he intended; the 
countless seeds that fall to the ground and never 
germinate, tending only to enrich the soil for other 
plants, fulfil their mission in God's economy just as 
surely and truly as do the comparatively few that 
grow and bear blossom and fruit. But with man, 
the crown of God's creation, it is different. God's 
purpose in regard to him is revealed, and revealed 
in such a way as to make it sure that in respect to 
him God will most surely carry out that purpose. 
That purpose we have already fully considered ; it is 
to create him, the race, in God's own image and like- 
ness ; and the language in which this purpose is set 
forth is of such an absolute and universal character 
as to fully indicate that the last and the lowest will 
finally be gathered. " I am the first, and with the 
last, saith the Lord." You cannot reason by analogy 



212 Bible Harmony. 

from the lower animals to man ; you might reason 
thus from a protozoa to a lion or an eagle : but when 
you pass from the highest of the brute creation to 
man, you must vault infinity, for man is a moral 
being, his era is eternity, his destiny is the image of 
God. 

The other consideration that helps us to under- 
stand how God will be able to conquer and subdue 
every stubborn will and yet not invade man's free- 
dom, is that though man is free, as has been ex- 
plained, yet he is not independent ; he is the crea- 
ture of circumstances ; he is beset on every side by 
influences that determine his will, and often against 
his desires and inclinations; e very one knows that 
this is simply matter of fact ; in other words, we 
might truthfully say that man's will is under the 
control of motives; it is turned hither and thither 
by the various motives that arise from our circum- 
stances and surroundings ; it might not be correct to 
say that man ever does anything against his will : 
for whatever he does, even though it were to deliver 
up his purse to a highwayman, the volition must 
precede the act — he wills to do it before he does it ; 
but he does many things contrary to his desires, con- 
trary to his intentions and his original plan ; that is, 
he yields to the strongest motive; if a man presents 
a loaded pistol to your head and demands your money 
or your life, you give up your money actuated by the 
motive of self-preservation. Perhaps (Hie will say 
that this is mere brute force, for you have wo other 
alternative but to give up your valuables or die : this 



Bible Harmony. 213 

is true, and I would not be understood as presenting 
this as an illustration of God's influence over the 
will ; but only as an illustration of the fact that one 
is swayed by powerful motives to do many things 
contrary to his own wishes and inclinations, and 
under circumstances, too, where we would not say 
that he was forced, but that he had choice of several 
alternatives. Such experiences are very common in 
the life of each and all; for example, a poor man 
works for half wages to support his family, when 
his inclinations would lead him to resist the injus- 
tice and to refuse to work at starvation prices ; 
here again you might say he is forced, and in a sense 
it is true ; but strictly speaking he is not forced, but 
has the choice of other possible alternatives ; and is 
it not true that in a greater or less degree our will is 
forced continually by all-powerful motives arising 
from surrounding circumstances ? Take the follow- 
ing incident as another illustration. A stage-driver 
in Montana, on a bitter cold day in winter, had for his 
only passengers over a long stage a mother and infant 
child ; the road was blocked with snow, the vehicle 
could proceed but slowly, and the driver at last 
began to fear that the woman would be frozen ; she 
seemed to be sinking into a lethargy that he knew 
would be fatal, and at last he persuaded her to alight 
from the stage and walk, in order to start the sluggish 
blood ; still clinging to her babe she got out upon the 
bleak road and wearily struggled on behind ; at last, 
completely overcome by the piercing cold, she sank 
upon the snow and refused to move; the driver, him- 



214 Bible Harmony. 

self suffering intensely, could not move her, and what 
to do he knew not ; at length a thought struck him, 
and quickly he put it into execution; snatching the 
baby from her clinging arms, he rushed to the stage, 
sprang upon the box, and started up his team; the 
mother was roused by the apparent peril of her child, 
she started to her feet, and hastened in pursuit ; on 
she struggled, frantic with fear, nerved with a super- 
human strength to fight for her offspring ; the driver 
kept on until the woman had run quite a distance, 
then he stopped, restored the babe, helped the woman 
into the coach, and proceeded on his way ; the woman 
was warmed up by the exertion and her life was 
saved. This incident illustrates how God can in- 
fluence the will of man to induce him to choose the 
good part. Seizing upon the resources at his com- 
mand, the driver was enabled to present to that 
mother a motive so powerful as to overshadow all 
other considerations, and induce her to do what was 
best for herself and child; he did not force her to 
the exertion that saved her life, but simply presented 
an all-powerful motive, and thus controlled her will. 
Now is it not likely, nay, is it not certain, that, in the 
process of creation, God has resources at his command 
sufficient to bring about, soon or later, an analo- 
gous result in the case of every human being? That 
is, he will be able to present to each one motives 
strong enough to induce them to voluntarily choose 
the right. 

God must be supreme in the realm oi motive 
causes; it- must be that, he is able to present more 



Bible Harmony. 215 

powerful motives for the right than any that can be 
presented for the wrong; and since man's will is con- 
trolled by motives, God has thus the means whereby 
he will be able to subdue every human will unto his 
own, and that too, without invading its freedom. 
We have a perfect example and illustration of all 
this in the 

CONVERSION OF PAUL. 

Judging from the facts in the case, we can scarcely 
imagine a more unlikely thing, humanly speaking, 
than the conversion of this same apostle ; every cir- 
cumstance that would make such an event unlikely 
was present in his case. His ancestry and birth ; his 
training and education ; his religion, the most rigid 
of Phariseeism ; all his prejudices and all his worldly 
interests, — every circumstance and consideration con- 
nected with him were all utterly against the idea of 
his ever becoming a follower of the despised Nazarene. 
The conversion to Christianity of Colonel Ingersoll 
to-day would not begin to be so unlikely as the conver- 
sion of Saul of Tarsus, the bitter persecutor, to that 
hated religion. It was not that he was an uncommonly 
wicked man, or an infidel or atheist, but he was iron- 
clad with prejudice and self-righteousness ; with his 
will set like adamant against the new religion, and 
a determination as rigid as steel to stamp it out and 
annihilate it ; and to make his case still more hope- 
less from a human standpoint, in all this he thought 
he was doing God's service, he was utterly blinded 
and deceived. Surely Simon Magus might become 



216 Bible Harmony. 

a Christian, but Saul of Tarsus, never ! The extreme 
unlikeliness of his conversion is still further shown 
in the fact that after the event, the disciples would 
not believe that he was converted, but seemed to fear 
some treachery, some deep laid scheme to entrap and 
destroy them. And yet this same Saul of Tarsus 
was transformed in a moment, as it were, from the 
wilful, proud, bitter persecutor, to the mild, suffer- 
ing, obedient servant of the Lord. From "breath- 
ing out threatening and slaughter' 7 against Christ 
and his followers, to "Lord, what wilt thou have 
me to do?" — seems avast distance morally; and yet 
Paul traversed that distance in a moment. One 
glance at the Lord whom he had been persecuting 
was enough to sweep away all his Jewish prejudices, 
all his hatred, pride, and self-rigliteousness ; he became 
humble, submissive, and obedient; ready to lay down 
his life for the sake of the cause that, up to that time, 
he had done all in his power to overthrow. It was a 
most wonderful transformation. How was it accom- 
plished? Simply by opening his eyes to see the truth. 
The light that deprived him for a time of his natu- 
ral sight, gave to him a spiritual discernment that 
changed the whole course of his life in a moment. 
Did he not choose the good part voluntarily ? Cer- 
tainly he did; and yet did not God in a most won- 
derful and effectual manner influence his will? Ii 
almost seems that the apostle's will was forced, and 
yet of course it was not. The whole thing was " of 
Grod," and yet Paul was free. Paul realized how 
thoroughly his conversion was of God, lor he says in 



Bible Harmony. 217 

his letter to the Galatians, "When it pleased God 
who separated me from my mother's womb, and called 
me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me that I might 
preach him among the heathen, immediately I con- 
ferred not with flesh and blood. " When it pleases 
God the work is done ; no obstacle, physical or moral 
or mental, can stay his hand ; his council shall stand 
and he will do all his pleasure. 

We are apt to think the apostle's case was excep- 
tional ; that the Lord brought to bear upon him an 
unusual influence in order to so speedily convert him. 
But if this were true it would show that God was a 
respecter of persons, and that he showed Paul a favor 
that he withholds from other sinners ; moreover, such 
conversion would be equivalent to a conversion per 
force ; for if Paul was converted by an unusual dem- 
onstration of power on the part of God, without 
which he would not have yielded, then it follows that 
Paul did not voluntarily yield, but was compelled by 
the extra pressure of the power and grace of God; 
and finally, and more serious than all the rest, such 
a view would make God directly responsible for all 
opposition to his will ; for if he could thus so speedily 
break down and subdue the iron will of Saul of 
Tarsus, then he could do the same in the case of 
every sinner ; and if he does not do it, he is respon- 
sible for their opposition to him ; for if he chose, he 
could transform them at once, as he did the apostle, 
from bitter enemies to humble servants of the cross 
of Christ. 

We are not, however, left to conjecture on this 



218 Bible Harmony. 

point ; we faioio that Paul's case was not exceptional, 
but on the contrary it was a "pattern" case unto all 
those who should thereafter believe ; this the apostle 
tells us in so many words in 1 Tim. i. 16. The con- 
clusion from this case is inevitable. Grod will never 
lack resources whereby to subdue every stubborn will ; 
not by invading their freedom, but by presenting a 
motive so powerful that the will yields to it at once. 
So it was with Saul of Tarsus. He had many and 
strong reasons for fighting against the cause of Christ ; 
and yet, as a matter of fact, the reasons for his espous- 
ing that cause were infinitely more mighty, inasmuch 
as they pertained to the "spiritual man," while the 
former reasons were merely part and parcel of " this 
corruptible." Now when Paul was made to see this, 
the true state of the case, he immediately chose the 
right way. All that was needed to set him right 
was to open his eyes to see the truth, and to give him 
power to embrace it. Paul describes his case exactly 
in Phil. iii. 4-14. First he speaks of those worldly 
considerations — his high birth, bright prospects, 
blameless character, etc. — which might have been 
counted "gain" to him in temporal things; but all 
these he counted "loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord"; "for whom," 
continues the apostle, "I have suffered the loss of all 
things, and do count them but dung, that I may win 
Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own 
righteousness, which is of the lav, but that which is 
through tlu 1 faith of Christ, the righteousness which 
is of God by faith; that I may know him, and the 



Bible Harmony. 219 

power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his 
sufferings, being made comformable unto his death, if 
by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of 
the dead " ; and a little further he declares, " this 
one thing I do, forgetting those things that are 
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are 
before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Is it not plain 
what were the motives that led the apostle to turn 
about so quickly ? and were not these motives amply 
sufficient ? do they not fully account for his sudden 
conversion ? would such motives as these fail in the 
case of any one, if only they could fully realize them ? 
will not every son and daughter of the race choose 
life rather than death, when they fully understand 
the true circumstances of the case? Surely man's 
free will is no obstacle in the way of universal resti- 
tution, since the very laws of his being invariably lead 
him to decide in favor of the weightiest motive ; and 
surely the Almighty can present stronger motives to 
every person to right living than can be advanced 
for the wrong; and that he will bring every man 
under the influence of such motives — giving them 
the necessary light to apprehend the motives and 
the moral power to act in accordance therewith — is 
certainly scriptural and is assured to us also on the 
grounds of reason and justice. 

Especially does the conversion of Paul, as a " pat- 
tern" case give us the above assurance. He was 
"the chief of sinners," and a "pattern to them who 
should afterward believe." Some have thought that 



220 Bible Harmony. 

he exaggerates when he calls himself the chief of sin- 
ners ; but I cannot think so ; to me the statement is 
sober literal fact, albeit some may misapprehend the 
apostle's meaning. He does not mean that he was 
the most wicked man that ever lived ; he was not the 
chief of sinners in this sense ; but he was chief in 
that he was one of the hardest kind of sinners to 
reach ; encased as he was in prejudice and self-right- 
eousness, and utterly deceived in his work, he was as 
hard a case for God to deal with as it was possible to 
produce ; and in this sense he was the chief of sinners ; 
and yet the Lord had no difficulty in turning him 
about, forthwith ; and this was a pattern case. Will 
any one then withstand God forever ? will there be 
incorrigible ones whom he cannot subdue? Nay, 
verily ; he will be fully " able even to subdue all 
things unto himself," so that " every knee shall bow 
and every tongue shall give praise to God." 



CHAPTER X. 

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 

There is probably no subject in all the range of 
religious thought so difficult to deal with as this 
problem of evil. It seems a mystery dark and deep, 
with absolutely no solution attainable by mortal 
man. "When I was a young man, together with a 
number of young men, joining the ministry, one of 
the members of a committee before which we had 
to appear, put to us this question : " Can you recon- 
cile the character of God — his justice, wisdom, and 
love — with the fact that, having created man as he 
did, susceptible to temptation, and liable to fall, he 
yet allowed evil to assail him, well knowing what 
the result would be — misery, wretchedness, and 
death, upon the entire race ; and in the case of 
some, everlasting torment ? " We all acknowledged 
that we could not do it, and we waited with great in- 
terest for an explanation of the difficulty from our 
venerable interlocutor when, to our surprise and dis- 
appointment, he acknowledged his own utter inabil- 
ity to solve the problem, and no other member of the 
committee could throw any light upon it; they all 
concurred in the view that it was all an inexplicable 
mystery that could not be understood by mortal 
man. This is really the condition of the great mass 

221 



222 Bible Harmony. 

of the Christian church. Volumes have been written, 
there have been oceans of talk, and yet the dark 
problem of evil is unsolved. The question of the 
origin of evil has been the one with which theolo- 
gians have principally wrestled ; to imagine some 
way whereby evil might have first come into exist- 
ence, and yet clear God from the tremendous re- 
sponsibility of its creation, has been the great effort 
of those who have written on this subject ; and yet 
it seems to me that the mere fact of the existence of 
evil, whatever may have been its origin, is the real 
difficulty after all. 

The question proposed by the eminent divine to 
the young preachers, as already related, is the one 
we want answered. How can we reconcile the ex- 
istence of evil — the tremendous and awful fact of 
its bare existence — with the fact of the existence 
of a God. of infinite power, wisdom, and love ? Why 
does God allow evil to exist at all ? How can he, 
pure and holy and all-loving, — how can he endure 
the presence of this interloper (if it be an inter- 
loper) in his universe for a moment? And if he does 
allow its existence, and endure its presence, is he 
not in some sense responsible for the consequence* ? 
Or, do you say that God cannot or will not abolish 
evil; that, having established or permitted a certain 
condition of things, he will not interpose his power 
to change it, for in so doing he would have to inter- 
fere with man's free will? The subject of man's 
freedom we have already considered, and have found 
that while man is indeed free relatively and within 



Bible Harmony. 223 

certain limits, he is not absolutely independent, by 
any means, but is fully in God's hands and under 
his control, so that there is no doubt about God's 
being able to subdue him at last to his will. Further- 
more, whatever condition of things obtains, God 
must be responsible for it in the first place, or, what 
amounts to the same thing, responsible for that chain 
of causes that led to this condition of things. If 
God cannot change this evil state for the better, 
then he is not supreme ; if he will not, then is he 
not all-loving, unless he has a purpose in this evil, 
that in its fulfilment will redound to Iris glory and 
his creatures' good. Did not God permit evil to 
enter the world in the first place when he might 
have prevented it ? We certainly must say yes, for 
to deny it would impeach the divine attributes and 
detract from his godhood ; in fact, it would dethrone 
him, and leave the universe without a supreme head. 
If, then, God permitted evil when he might have 
prevented it, then surely, in some sense, he is re- 
sponsible for all the consequences flowing therefrom, 
and the only way we can vindicate him is by taking 
the ground that God has a purpose in evil that in 
the end will be all good. 

We have already seen in past chapters that God 
is responsible, and that he does bring good out of 
evil. An absolutely supreme God is a universally 
responsible God, and such is the clear, plain, positive 
teachings of scripture, as we have seen. To this 
universal responsibility, evil is no exception, but 
rather a specially designated feature, inasmuch as 
God declares himself to be its creator. 



224 Bible Harmony. 

" I "form the light, and create darkness : I make 
peace and create evil : I the Lord do all these 
things" (Isa. xlv. 7). 

Here is the statement : " I create evil : I the 
Lord." He takes the responsibility. Does not this 
settle the question of the origin of evil ? 

Of course I know how this passage is disposed of 
by those who are afraid to take God at his word. 
It is said that not moral evil is meant, but evil in 
the shape of calamities and chastisements sent as 
the punishment of sin. This explanation, however, 
appears to me like a mere makeshift. The word 
rendered " evil " in this passage is the usual one, in 
the original, used throughout the Old Testament 
hundreds of times to denote wickedness and wrongf- 
doing ; and we have no reason, so far as the language 
is concerned, to give it any other meaning here ; and 
let it be noticed that the particular evil referred to 
here is war, as is clearly shown by the context ; it 
is God that girds Cyrus, his "anointed," for the 
conflict and makes him victorious. Now war is not 
a physical evil, but always comes as a consequence 
of wrong-doing; war results from sin, corruption, 
deceit, oppression, ambition, hatred, revenge, and 
every other wicked passion ; and yet it is one of the 
forms of evil growing out of God's creation. Further- 
more, what will we do with that strange passage in 
Amos hi. G, — "Shall there be evil in a city and the 
Lord hath not done it?" Hen 1 it is certainly inti- 
mated that God is responsible for the evil done : here 
is the declaration, and coming direct from head- 



Bible Harmony. 225 

quarters too, as the first verse indicates, " Hear the 
word that the Lord hath spoken." This passage is 
even more strange and startling than the other. 
What ! does the prophet mean to intimate that what- 
ever evil is done in the city, the Lord does it ? That 
is the way the passage reads, though I confess it is 
hard to accept the statement. I would suggest a 
comparison of this passage with Gen. xxxix. 22, in 
order to get some idea of its possible meaning. 

I would add that the distinction made between 
physical evil and moral evil, seems to me to be a 
delusion and a snare. Does not all evil have a moral 
quality? Is there any other kind of evil except 
moral? Is an earthquake, for instance, an evil in 
itself ? Not so ; any more than a storm is an 
evil ; either the one or the other may cause harm 
or injury, but they are not evils in themselves. Evil 
is the outcome of something wrong, always and 
everywhere, and yet God says, " I create evil" Must 
we not consider that question settled ? and turn our 
attention to the consideration of that other ques- 
tion — 

THE PURPOSE OF EVIL. 

If it be true that God is the creator of evil, as the 
scriptures declare, then it must be that he has 
created it for a good purpose, and the conclusion 
would seem to follow, that all evil, under the con- 
trolling and guiding hand of God, must result in 
good finally. I say this conclusion seems to follow 
from the foregoing considerations, and if this con- 



226 Bible Harmony. 

elusion is correct, then it certainly would account 
for the existence of evil, and would fully vindicate 
God as its creator. That this conclusion is correct, 
I am convinced, and the reasons for that conviction 
I will now give the reader. 

The subjects already considered, especially that 
" All things are of God," will help us to understand 
the one in hand. I have given several examples of 
how God has overruled evil for good; as, for instance, 
in the case of Joseph. Now if God has done this in 
some cases, and if, as we know, " he worketh all 
things after the counsel of his own will," then surely 
it is not difficult to believe that he overrules all evil 
for good. In fact, this must be so, for it is only on 
this ground, viz. that all evil tends to good in the 
end, that we can reconcile the existence of evil at 
all with the existence of a God of infinite power, 
wisdom, and love. We may not be able to see how, 
in each individual case, evil is overruled for good ; 
but we can easily believe that it is so overruled, 
when once the principle is established that God does 
overrule evil for good ; and this we can do the more 
readily, when we come to understand some of the 
good ends to which evil conduces, and thus come to 
know something of the purpose of evil ; and when 
we see, furthermore, that this purpose is grand and 
glorious, and in perfect harmony with the character 
of God, and that it fully accounts for the existence 
of evil. 

1. Evil gives occasion for those conditions and 
circumstance's whereby God is able to reveal himself 



Bible Harmony. 227 

to man. To know God is everything ; it is " life 
eternal " (John xvii.). Again and again the Lord 
declares, by the month of his servants, that the great 
purpose of his dealings with mankind is "that they 
may know me " (e.g. Ex. vii. 5 ; viii. 22 ; Ezek. xx. 
25, 26 ; xxxviii. 16), and the crowning distinction of 
the millennial age is that " all shall know the Lord." 
"The knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth 
as the waters cover the sea." 

Now how could God reveal himself in all his ful- 
ness to man without the conditions and circumstances 
that are occasioned by evil ? How could God ever 
reveal himself to man in his mercy, long-suffering, 
and compassion, if it had not been that evil had 
placed us in a position to call for the exercise of 
these attributes in our behalf ? And especially, how 
could God manifest to us his love in all its intensity 
and greatness except by such an opportunity as evil 
furnishes ? As it is written, " In this was manifested 
the love of God toward us, because that God sent 
his only begotten Son into the world that we might 
live through him." There could have been no such 
manifestation of the Father's love if there had been 
no such thing as evil. We might believe that a 
friend loved us, even though his love had never been 
especially tested ; but we never could fully appre- 
ciate his love unless circumstances should transpire 
to give him an opportunity to exhibit it in all its 
strength and fulness. Likewise, we never could have 
understood the love of God, and hence never could 
have known him, for God is love (1 John iv. 7, 8), 



228 Bible Harmony, 

had it not been for our lost and wretched condition 
furnishing the Father with an adequate opportunity 
for its manifestation. It was " when we were with- 
out strength" that Christ died for us. "God com- 
mendeth his love towards us, in that while we were 
yet sinners Christ died for us." It was because 
we were in such an evil case, sinners and without 
strength, that the love that brought deliverance is so 
marked and readily appreciated. Hence, again we 
read, " Hereby perceive we the love of God, because 
Christ laid down his life for us." How could we 
ever have perceived that love in all its rich plenitude 
if we had never come under the power of evil, so as 
to need this extreme manifestation of it ? Surely it 
must be plain that without the opportunity that evil 
affords, God could never have fully revealed himself 
to man. 

2. Furthermore, as evil gives God occasion to re- 
veal himself to us so that we may know him, so it gives 
us the opportunity to exercise the attributes of God 
so that we may become like him. The presence of evil 
in the world gives the child of God the opportunity 
for the exercise of the godlike attributes of mercy, 
compassion, forgiveness, forbearance, meekness, pa- 
tience, gentleness (Psa. xviii. 35) ; and thus he 
becomes like God ; for if ye do these things " ye shall 
be the children of the highest; for he maketh his sun 
to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain 
on the just and on the unjust, and is land unto the 
unthankful and to the evil." In a sinless world man 
would have QO opportunity to exercise these ami- 



Bible Harmony. 229 

butes ; there would be no occasion for their exercise ; 
hence there would be no chance to become like God 
in these respects. Is it not clear, then, that the 
presence of evil in the world gives God occasion to 
reveal himself to man, and gives man the opportunity 
to become like God ? 

These considerations also account for another very 
strange condition of things in this world; that is, the 
injustice and inequality that obtains. The innocent 
and helpless suffer most keenly on account of the 
viciousness and brutality of others, and thus the 
most outrageous injustice is perpetrated continually; 
moreover, the blessings of life seem to be very un- 
equally distributed ; some have a superabundance ; 
others lack the very necessaries of life ; the few seem 
to be actually surfeited with worldly prosperity at 
the expense of the masses. Now how can such a con- 
dition be tolerated in the dominions of a God of 
absolute justice — a God that considereth the poor, 
and is the friend of the fatherless and the widow? 
The answer to this (at least a partial answer) is the 
consideration presented, viz. that God's children may 
become like him. " All things are for your sakes ; 
that the abundant grace might through the thanks- 
giving of many redound to the glory of God." 

Suppose that we lived in a world of absolute jus- 
tice, where no one suffered except what they strictly 
deserved to suffer ; where the innocent never suffered, 
but only the guilty, and they suffered just so much, 
no more and no less, as was due to their transgres- 
sion, and would be beneficial to the transgressor. 



230 Bible Harmony. 

Suppose we lived in such a world as that; at first 
thought it would seem to be a very nice kind of a 
world. But how could we, in such a world, develop 
the godlike attributes of pity, mercy, compassion, 
charity, and gentleness? There would be no room 
for heavenly compassion and sweet charity in a world 
of absolute justice ; we would not be likely to pity 
very much a person whom we knew was receiving 
only the punishment due his fault, and that in the 
end would be for his benefit and blessing. Is it 
not plain that just this hind of evil, i.e. the evil of 
injustice, is needed in order that those crowning attri- 
butes of God, the tender and loving qualities of our 
Father in heaven, may be developed and perfected in 
his human children? Furthermore, so far as the in- 
justice goes, that may be only temporary and appar- 
ent. Who shall say that in the future cycles which 
God's plan has yet to run, all the apparent injustice 
of this present time may not be taken into account, 
perfectly adjusted, and made right ? We may well 
believe that it will be so when we are assured that 
" the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough 
places plain, and the glory of God [which is his 
goodness; see Ex. xxxiii. 18, 19] shall be revealed, 
and all flesh shall see it together." 

3. But in addition to the above considerations we 
have the direct testimony of scripture thai evil is one 
of God's ministers of good. It is clearly intimated 
again and again that God uses evil Eor the accom- 
plishment of his plans, which, o{ course, are always 
good. Sec, for example, Judges ix. 23 : read the 



Bible Harmony. 231 

context, and you will see that Abimelecli, by a most 
atrocious crime, had obtained the rulership of Israel, 
and to punish him " God sent an evil spirit between 
him and the men of Shechem," and the result was 
the punishment of all the guilty parties. Is not evil 
God's servant, and does he not use it to carry out 
his own plans ? See the same thought brought out 
in 1 Sam. xvi. 14 : " The spirit of the Lord departed 
from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled 
him." This evil spirit was just as much " from the 
Lord " as was the good spirit. See also 1 Kings xxii. 
23, where the Lord is represented as employing " a 
lying spirit," to deceive wicked Ahab to his own 
destruction. 

The case of Job is one of the most striking and 
perfect illustrations of this wonderful truth. The 
Lord speaks of him as " My servant Job, — there is 
none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright 
man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil." 
Thus it appears that Job was a remarkably good man, 
and this is confirmed by Ezek. xiv. 14, 20. Now 
then, what does God do but deliberately hand over 
this "perfect and upright man" into the hands of 
Satan, to do his worst upon him, only that he should 
not touch his life. How could we have a more per- 
fect illustration of how God uses evil as an instru- 
ment for good? For although Job suffered intensely, 
we know that in the end he was greatly blessed by 
his hard and bitter experience. If God thus uses 
Satan, the embodiment of evil, as a minister for good 
in the case of one individual, is it hard to believe 



232 Bible Harmony. 

that all evil is overruled of God for good in all 
cases ? 

The New Testament teaches the same truth. Did 
you ever notice how strangely the Evangelists Mat- 
thew and Mark speak of Christ's temptation? The 
Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted 
of the devil, and he was there with the wild beasts. 
What a strange statement ! The holy spirit of God 
drives the sinless Jesus into the wilderness among 
the wild beasts to be tempted of Satan, the arch- 
enemy of all good, a murderer from the beginning, and 
the father of lies ! Truly, God creates evil, and uses 
it too, for his own purposes and glory. The apostle 
Paul fully understood this great truth and practised 
it himself; hence he writes to the Corinthians, "to 
deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction 
of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of 
the Lord Jesus " ; and he declares in his letter to 
Timothy that he himself had delivered certain ones 
unto Satan, "that they might learn not to blas- 
pheme." It would seem also that the apostle knew 
something of this kind of discipline himself, for he 
says, "Lest I should be exalted above measure 
through the abundance of the revelations, there was 
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of 
Satan, to buffet me lest I should be exalted above 
measure." All this clearly proves that God over- 
rules evil for good, — that even Satan's work shall 
result in blessings for God's children. 

Finally, we will notice one more passage more 
remarkable, if possible, even than those 1 have cited. 



Bible Harmony. 233 

In the twentieth chapter of the Revelation we have 
an account of the total restraint of the devil and 
consequent suppression of evil for a thousand years. 
What a blessed era of peace and righteousness that 
will be ! and how desirable that it should continue, and 
that evil should never again curse the earth! But 
lo, wonderful to relate, at the end of the thousand 
years, Satan is loosed out of his prison, and again 
goes out to deceive the nations, and peace is banished 
from the earth, and war and slaughter ensues with 
terrible suffering and destruction ! According to the 
common idea of the origin and final effects of evil, 
there would seem to be some terrible mistake here. 
Either Satan was not watched close enough, or his 
prison was insecure, or there was treachery, — some 
awful blunder, or more awful crime, has been com- 
mitted, to let the devil loose, when once he was well 
secured, — surely, so it would seem from the stand- 
point of orthodoxism. But so it is not. All is plain 
when we see the great truth that I have tried to set 
forth. Satan is God's servant, to carry out his plans ; 
God now leaves him free to work out his mischievous 
will among the children of men ; he is " the prince of 
this world," " the spirit that worketh in the children 
of disobedience." The time will come when he will 
be bound and put under total restraint, and so remain 
through the millennium ; then he will be loosed be- 
cause God has something more for him to do, and he 
will be finally disposed of at the time and in the man- 
ner that God pleases. God could destroy him now if 
he was so disposed, but we have seen that evil is 



234 Bible Harmony. 

needful and beneficial in the end; it is one of God's 
creatures, and his servant, and is conducive to the 
accomplishment of his gracious plans, as are all other 
things. 

Thus the Word untangles this great mystery of 
evil for us, and shows us clearly that it is not an 
interloper in God's economy ; it is not a foreign sub- 
stance in the delicate fabric of God's great plan, 
obstructing and disarranging its intricate mechanism ; 
nay, it is a necessary part of that plan; it rightly 
belongs to that marvellous congeries of forces that, 
under the control and guidance of the one supreme 
mind, works and interworks steadily, and without 
interruption or delay, to the glorious end of creating 
a godlike race. 

We may add that the final outcome of God's plan 
fully confirms the foregoing view of the problem of 
evil. All the details and every particular of the plan 
in all its length and breadth are not revealed, but the 
final outcome is revealed, and that revelation assures 
us that all things will result in good in the end. 
" Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall give 
praise to God " (Rom. xiv. 11, new version, margin). 
The whole creation shall be delivered from the bond- 
age of corruption. All things in heaven and earth 
shall be gathered together in Christ. Death shall be 
swallowed up in victory. God will subdue all things, 
and reconcile all things unto himself (Phil. iii. -1 : 
Col. i. 20). There shall be no more anything ac- 
cursed. Every created thing shall praise God (Rev. 
v. 13, new version), and God shall be all in all. This 



Bible Harmony. 235 

is the outcome. Thank God! it is good enough. To 
this final result all things are tending. To such a 
grand victory God's creation is travelling on. We 
can see it by faith " afar off." 

" I cannot doubt that good shall fall 
At last — far off — at last to all, 
And every winter turn to spring." 

I cannot belittle the above grand scriptural declar- 
ations, nor do I wish to belittle them, to make them 
mean anything less than a perfect and absolute tri- 
umph for goodness, truth, and justice, for life and 
love ; and if this is the outcome, then all things, evil 
included, are tending toward this end ; and this must 
be so, because (again we reach the same conclusion) 
all things are of God. 



CHAPTER XL 

PEOBATION AND JUDGMENT. 

The subject of probation is creating a great sensa- 
tion in the religious world at the present time. This 
is really the great theological question of the day — 
whether there is any probation for any after this 
present life. It is a well-known fact that a very 
large party have arisen within the church (notably 
in the Congregationalist communion) who plainly 
declare in favor of posthumous probation ; and many 
more who entertain that view as a "hope," more 
or less definite and pronounced; in fact, this hope, 
" the larger hope," as it is called, has become very 
popular among Christians, and is embraced by them 
as a welcome relief from some of the harsh and heart- 
less features of extreme orthodoxism. Men and 
women who are trying to live Christian lives are 
driven to embrace this hope in self-defence against 
a relentless dogmatism that would consign millions 
and millions of heathen to an endless hell, or hope- 
less annihilation, who had never even so much as 
heard of the true Cod or of our Saviour Jesus Christ. 
Common humanity revolts against such an appalling 
conclusion ; and to save himself from it on (lie one 
hand, and from downright infidelity and atheism on 
236 






Bible Harmony. 237 

the other, many an honest Christian has embraced 
this view of posthumous probation as a welcome 
relief. 

Let us consider this subject from the standpoint of 
this volume. The considerations already presented 
will, if I err not, help us to understand this impor- 
tant matter. 

I very much fear that the common idea of proba- 
tion is erroneous. It is assumed, to begin with, that 
all mankind are under the sentence of eternal death, 
which, according to orthodoxism, means endless life 
in misery ; all are hell-deserving and in danger of 
being lost forever ; during this life, judgment is sus- 
pended, and an opportunity is offered to escape the 
execution of this impending sentence, by repentance 
and faith in Christ; this is man's probation — a brief 
chance to escape hell and secure heaven ; if he fails 
to improve this opportunity, and dies impenitent, 
the sentence is irrevocably executed and the man is 
eternally lost. No such teaching as this, either in 
outline or in detail, can be found in the Bible ; it is 
entirely human tradition. In the first place, no such 
thing as " eternal death " is ever spoken of in the 
Bible ; the phrase, nor the idea, nowhere occurs in 
the sacred writings. Secondly, the truth is not that 
man is under the sentence of death, and in danger 
of being lost, but he is already dead and lost, and 
Christ comes to seek and save the lost, and to "give 
life to the [dead] world." Thirdly, no such ghastly 
view of life as this is anywhere presented in scripture. 
According to this view, this life, if we make the best 



238 Bible Harmony. 

use of it possible, is simply a race from hell to heaven ; 
as the hymn puts it, — 

" Nothing is worth a thought beneath, 
But how I may escape the death 

That never, never dies ! 
My sole concern, my single care, 
To watch, and tremble, and prepare 
Against that fatal day." 

What an utterly hideous conception of life ! a con- 
stant struggle to keep out of perdition ! this, the 
" sole concern," the " single care " ! and yet very 
many Christians have no higher conception of the 
purpose of this present existence than the above ; 
their highest idea of salvation is salvation from the 
consequences of sin — an endless hell. This unworthy 
view is inculcated and fostered by the practice of the 
churches in working upon the fears of the impenitent 
to induce them to make a profession of religion. 
The great plea always is, shun perdition ! prepare to 
die ! Neither of these motives are ever urged in the 
Bible to induce to holy living, and yet these are the 
main, and ofttimes the sole exhortations to the un- 
converted. 

Now the scriptural view of probation, if I err not, 
is as follows : Man's probation is the period of his 
discipline ; training, instruction, development, and 
perfecting ; "perfected through suffering," as was our 
Saviour before us. ITe undergoes this (rial not as an 
experiment, but man must be proved for his own 
sake; for how else can he ascertain the truth, and 
how else can he develop a character like him who 



Bible Harmony. 239 

is " the brightness of the Father's glory and the ex- 
press image of his person " ? Bear in mind that it is 
Crod who is creating the race in his own image and 
likeness ; man is not creating himself ; man's proba- 
tion is a part of the creative process. God's own 
honor and credit is at stake, and he will surely com- 
plete the work he has begun. " Being confident of 
this one thing, that he which hath begun a good 
work in you will peform it until the day of Jesus 
Christ" (Phil. i. 6). 

We have already noticed this point in another part 
of the book, and I will only add further, that it will 
make a great difference in our theology as well as in 
our Christian life whether we look upon man's re- 
demption as entirely depending on him or as ulti- 
mately depending on God, — whether we view him 
as the arbiter of his own destiny or as " God's work- 
manship." The correctness of our theology will also 
greatly depend upon our idea of God. If we think 
of him as hampered and limited by the so-called 
" free moral agency " of man and the vindictive 
machinations of the devil, then our theology will be 
lame and limp, a halting, flimsy affair, that accords 
the Almighty only a partial victory. But if we think 
of him as "working all things after the counsel of his 
own will," as absolutely controlling men and devils, 
as " the Almighty God " in deed and in truth, and 
therefore responsible for all things, — if we think of 
him as one whose every attribute of poAver, and 
wisdom, and justice, and mercy, and righteousness, 
and whose nature of love is bent to the accomplish- 



240 Bible Harmony. 

ment of the supreme happiness of all his children, 
and as pledged to that end, so that it is absolutely 
certain, — then our theology will be lusty and vig- 
orous, a staff to lean on, a comfort and encourage- 
ment amid all the experiences of life, and an absolute 
assurance of final and complete victory. 

In the light of the plan of the ages the intelligent 
reader of this volume will see that not only is it true 
that there is a probation for mankind after this pres- 
ent life, but the great mass of the world have no pro- 
bation at all until after death. During this gospel 
age only the firstfruits are perfected ; the great gen- 
eral " ingathering " is due in the " ages to come." 
All this we have already considered ; in this chapter 
we need to add a word on the nature and character 
of probation. 

The word probation does not occur in the Bible ; 
but the idea is there, and an equivalent word which 
is usually rendered 

JUDGMENT. 

" The day of judgment " is the period of the 
world's probation ; judgment is probation, i.e. the 
trial, the proving or deciding time. 

In the Ncav Testament there are several words ren- 
dered judgment ; the two principal ones are crima 
and crisis. The former is generally used in the New 
Testament in the sense of unfavorable judgment, 
and the latter of favorable. We have analogous 
words in our own language: — from the former we 
have such words as crime, criminal, etc., and the 



Bible Harmony. 241 

latter word is directly incorporated into our lan- 
guage in very nearly its original meaning of a 
deciding time, the turning point. The scriptural 
use of these two words is best indicated by two con- 
trasted phrases. "Judgment unto condemnation" 
(Rom. v. 16) and " Judgment unto victory " (Matt, 
xii. 20) ; the former is adverse judgment, crima ; the 
latter is favorable judgment, crisis. 

The meanings given to crima in the original are 
decision, decree, judgment, condemnation ; its scrip- 
tural use can be gathered from such passages as Luke 
xxiii. 40, where the thief on the cross is spoken of as 
being " in the same condemnation." Acts xxiv. 25, 
where we are told that Paul reasoned before Felix of 
" righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." 
1 Tim. iii. 6 : A bishop must not be a novice, " lest 
being lifted up with pride he fall into condemnation." 
Rev. xvii. 1 : " Come hither, I will show unto thee 
the judgment of the great harlot." In all these pas- 
sages, and many others that might be noticed, crima 
is used of adverse judgment, "judgment unto con- 
demnation." 

The meanings given to crisis are a separating, 
choosing, deciding, determining, judging trial ; that 
this word is of favorable judgment we shall see from 
scriptures that we shall quote as we proceed. This 
latter word crisis is the word involving probation, as 
will be seen by the meanings given to it above ; it 
means a deciding time, a trial ; that is exactly what 
probation means ; the two words probation and trial 
are synonymous and hence interchangeable ; therefore 



242 Bible Harmony. 

in the Greek word crisis we have an equivalent to 
the English word probation ; thus the word is shown 
to be scriptural and correct. 

The derivation of this word probation also makes 
it peculiarly fitting as applied to man ; it comes from 
the Latin probatio, a proving, and applies to any pro- 
ceeding to ascertain truth, to determine character; 
for example, we have a probate court where legal 
instruments are proved and tested to determine 
whether or no they are genuine and lawful. So 
man's probation is to prove him, to ascertain the truth, 
to establish his character, and to make him fit for the 
high destiny before him ; " meet for the inheritance 
of the saints in light." 

The common idea of the judgment day is that it 
will be a short period of time somewhere in the 
future, when every individual of the human race will 
appear before the bar of God and sentence will be 
pronounced upon each according to their deserts. 
Thus the judgment day is the time of passing sen- 
tence upon man. After he has had his trial, and 
his doom is sealed (in fact, he may have been in 
possession of his reward or punishment for hun- 
dreds of years), he is to appear before the great 
tribunal and hear the words, "Come, ye blessed,'" or 
"Depart, ye cursed." Furthermore, this judgment 
day, according to orthodoxism, is represented as a 
dreadful period of almost universal doom ; thus the 
hymn describes it : 

"The day of wrath I thai dreadful day, 
When heaven and earth shall pass away; 



Bible Harmony. 243 

What power shall be the sinner's stay ? 
How shall he meet that dreadful day? 1 ' 

The horrors of this " clay of wrath " are pictured in 
the hymns, the sermons, and writings of the church. 
But the Bible view is very different ; according to 
the Word, the day of judgment is a time of blessing 
and of universal rejoicing, a day to be longed for, and 
looked forward to with the highest hopes and the 
most joyful anticipations ; for though the judgments 
of the Lord are ofttimes severe and fearful in their 
nature, as for instance when he rained fire and brim- 
stone from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, yet 
" the end of the Lord," as we shall presently see in 
the case of these devoted cities, is that he is " very 
pitiful and of tender mercy" (Jas. v. 11). Hence 
the old prophet says : — 

" Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have 
we waited for thee ; the desire of our soul is to thy 
name, and to the remembrance of thee ; with my 
soul have I desired thee in the night ; yea, with my 
spirit within me will I seek thee early " ; and why 
all this earnest longing and intense desire for the 
Lord, " in the way of his judgments " ? Because, 
64 when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabi- 
tants of the world will learn righteousness " (Isa. 
xxvi. 8, 9). 

Read the 67th, 96th, and 98th Psalms, and see how 
all creation is called upon to praise the Lord, because 
" he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the 
world with righteousness, and the people with his 
truth." There will be an awful reckoning with the 



244 Bible Harmony. 

wicked Avhen strict judgment is dealt out to the 
world, but the outcome will be " judgment unto vic- 
tory." The Lord will " lay judgment to the line, and 
righteousness to the plummet, and the hail shall sweep 
away the refuge of lies." Thus God's judgments shall 
be abroad in the earth, and the inhabitants of the 
world shall learn righteousness. This great truth is 
well expressed in Zeph. iii. 8, 9. 

" Therefore, wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until 
the day that I rise up to the prey ; for my determina- 
tion is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the 
kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even 
all my fierce anger, for the whole earth shall be 
devoured with the fire of my jealousy." And then 
what ? " For then will I turn to the people a pure 
language, that they may all call upon the name of 
the Lord, to serve him with one consent." This is 
the outcome of the Lord's judgments. He judges to 
save. He shall bring forth judgment unto victory; 
not defeat, either in whole, or in part, but victory, 
complete and absolute. " He shall see of the travail 
of his soul, and be satisfied." " The Lord killeth, 
and maketh alive" (compare Psa. lxxviii. 34). "He 
bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up." "He 
maketh sore, and bindeth up." "He woundeth, and 
his hands make whole." He even " turneth man to 
destruction, and saith, return }'e children of men/' 
Some are saved by grace (Eph. ii. 8), others by die 
(1 Cor. iii. lo), and still others by fear ( Jude 23)$ 
but whether by grace, or by lire, or by Pear, the pur- 
pose of God is to save. "He that speaketh in 



Bible Harmony. 245 

righteousness, mighty to save," — mighty to over- 
come every obstacle, even man's stubborn will, and 
to subdue all things unto himself. 

In the New Testament we find the same idea of 
the judgment set forth ; we are plainly taught that 
" that day " is not a day of twenty-four hours, or a 
short period of time, when merely sentence will be 
pronounced, but it is a long period, embracing many 
events (2 Pet. iii. 7, 8 ; compare Rev. xx. 4) ; it is 
the period when " the everlasting gospel " will be 
preached " to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, 
and people " (Rev. xiv. 6, 7) ; when the Lord comes 
to " execute judgment," the ungodly will be con- 
vinced of their ungodly deeds (Jude 14), and when 
his " judgments are made manifest," all nations shall 
come and worship before him " (Rev. xv. 4 ; see also 
Matt. xii. 18, 21 ; and compare Psa. lxxxvi. 9, 10). 

Acts xvii. 31 is remarkably clear upon this point. 
We are told in this passage, that " God has ap- 
pointed a day in the which he will judge the world 
in righteousness, by that man whom he has ordained, 
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in 
that he hath raised him from the dead." Is not this a 
promise of blessing unto " all men " in the judg- 
ment day ? Is not the allusion to Christ's resur- 
rection as a pledge unto all men that they will be 
judged in righteousness, an intimation of a blessing 
to all men? As Christ's judgment was "unto vic- 
tory," and he was " declared to be the Son of God, 
with power, by the resurrection from the dead," does 
not the language of the above passage imply that 



246 Bible Harmony. 

judgment will result in a like issue in the case of 
" all men " ? Would not such understanding of the 
text be in perfect harmony with the passage we have 
quoted from Isaiah, that when the judgments of the 
Lord are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world 
will learn righteousness ? and does it not give us a 
very clear insight into the manner whereby man shall 
be " redeemed by judgment " ? 

Finally, the great confirmation of this whole sub- 
ject of probation and judgment is the Bible teaching 
in regard to 

SODOM. 

We have an account of the destruction of this 
specially wicked city in Gen. xix. There are sev- 
eral references to this event in different parts of the 
Bible, but the most remarkable one is in the proph- 
ecy of Ezekiel, sixteenth chapter ; it is this reference 
to Sodom that we wish now to consider. In this 
passage (beginning at verse 44), we have first, a com- 
parison made between the wicked cities of Jerusalem, 
Samaria, and Sodom. The Lord declares that the 
first was more wicked than either of the other two. 
Lie goes on to tell why he destroyed Sodom (versos 
49, 50), and then he declares in plain and unmistak- 
able language that he purposes at some future time 
to restore Sodom to her "former estate" and when he 
does this he will restore Jerusalem and Samaria to 
their former estate. Now it is plain that by Sodom is 
meant the people, the Sodomite's (verses 40, 50), and 
it is certain that if the Sodomites are ever to bo re- 



Bible Harmony. 247 

stored to then: former estate, it must be from the dead; 
for they were all destroyed without a single excep- 
tion (see Luke xvii. 29) ; and it is further clear that 
they are thus to be restored that they may be bene- 
fited and blessed (see verses 60-63). I have not time 
to dwell upon this remarkable passage, nor is there 
any need of further explanation. It must be plain to 
all, that a probation after death is positively and di- 
rectly taught here ; no other interpretation can be put 
upon the passage except it be forced upon it ; and the 
truth is still further confirmed by the fact that we are 
tauo-ht that other nations are to be restored in " the 
latter days," viz. Moab, Ammon, and Elam (see Jer. 
xlviii. 47 ; xlix. 6, 39) ; and finally, David makes this 
restoration of the nations universal when he says : 
" All nations whom thou hast made shall come and 
worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy 
name ; for thou art great and doest wondrous things ; 
thou art God alone." Thus does it appear that, 
though thus far in the world's history, evil has seemed 
to triumph over the vast majority of God's " off- 
spring" (Acts xvii. 29), and they have gone down 
to the grave in darkness, ignorance, and sin, yet it 
by no means follows that this sad triumph is eternal ; 
for we see a big hope for the race in the "ages to 
come," when God " will show the exceeding riches of 
his grace." Well may we exclaim, in view of such 
a glorious " purpose of the ages," " Great and mar- 
vellous are thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; 
righteous and true are thy ways, thou King of the 
ages. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify 



248 Bible Harmony. 

thy name ? for thou only art holy ; for all the na- 
tions shall come and worship before thee ; for thy 
righteous acts have been made manifest " (Rev. xv. 
3, 4, new version). 



CHAPTER XII. 

LIFE AND DEATH. 

In this chapter my purpose is to bring out the 
Bible idea of life and death. Will the reader please 
notice this. I am not entering upon a scientific dis- 
cussion of this question ; I do not go to Webster for 
a definition of death as "extinction of being," or 
to orthodoxism, as " the separation of soul and body." 
But I wish just to take the Bible definition of life 
and death, and reason from that, so that we can get 
at the Bible idea on this subject; let the reader 
divest himself then as much as possible of the con- 
ventional idea of life and death, and the theological 
idea, and consider the subject entirely from a scrip- 
tural point of view. 

We have already noticed the fact that the Bible 
represents fallen man as in a condition of death, hav- 
no " life in him." We have also seen that Christ is 
the world's life. " I am the resurrection and the 
life." " The bread of God is my flesh, which I will 
give for the life of the world." To apprehend Christ 
as our life is a higher apprehension of the Saviour 
than most Christians possess. We think of him as 
our friend, advocate, pattern, elder brother, etc. But 
the great truth is that he is our life. The race is 
dead, " dead in trespasses and sins," and Christ comes 

249 



250 Bible Harmony. 

that they might have life, and that they might have 
it more abundantly. The scriptural evidence of this 
is most abundant, and the truth is most important. 
" If one died for all, then all died." " In Adam all 
died ; in Christ shall all be made alive." Thus Christ 
is our life. " This is the record that God hath given 
to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son ; he that 
hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son 
of God hath not life " (1 John v. 11, 12). "Ye are 
dead ; and your life is hid with Christ in God ; when 
Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also 
appear with him in glor}^." 

There is another passage in Paul's letter to Timo- 
thy that very forcibly sets forth this same idea. The 
apostle says : " Laying up in store for themselves a 
good foundation against the time to come, that they 
may lay hold on the life that is life indeed." This is 
the way it reads in the new version. The emphatic 
Diaglott puts it thus : " That they may lay hold of 
that which is really life." The word rendered "in- 
deed " or " really " is an adverb made from the par- 
ticiple of the verb " to be " (being} ; lay hold of the 
life, being life ; actually, really, and truly life ; imply- 
ing that that which men call life is not life at all. 
The real life is "the life hid with Christ in God." 
Let these great truths be fully kept in mind. Fallen 
man is dead. Christ is our life. Now we will con- 
sider the Bible definition of life and death. 

Rom. viii. 6, 7 : "To be carnally minded (literally, 
the mind of the flesh) is death; but to be spiritually 
minded (the mind oL' the spirit) is life and peace. 



Bible Harmony. 251 

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God ; for 
it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed 
can be." 

Every one familiar with the New Testament knows 
how these two terms, the flesh and the spirit, are 
contrasted. Gal. v. 16-26 fully illustrates this point; 
(see also Phil. iii. 1-7) ; in this passage we see what 
things Paul included under the head of " the flesh " ; 
everything that pertains to this fallen state comes 
under that head; it refers to "the course of this 
world " (Eph. ii. 2) — " the fashion of this world " ; 
(1 Cor. vii. 31) — to be engrossed in these things, to 
give our time and thought to them, is death. But on 
the other hand, " to seek those things that are above " 
(Col. iii. 1) ; to be "transformed by the renewing of 
our mind, that we may prove what is that good and 
acceptable and perfect will of God," and thus " to 
mind the things of the spirit " ; this is life. Hence, 
in harmony with these definitions of life and death, 
the apostle says, " She that liveth in pleasure (after 
the fashion of this world) is dead while she liveth " 
(1 Tim. v. 6). But he that has been crucified with 
Christ, having " crucified the flesh with its affections 
and lusts," lives while he is dead; as Paul declares: 
"I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I 
live ; yet not /, but Christ liveth in me, and the life 
I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son 
of God." 

Now let us proceed a step further. We will con- 
nect this definition of death and life in Rom. viii. 6, 
with Christ's specific definition of life in John xvii. 3. 



252 Bible Harmony. 

" This is life seonial, to know thee, the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." The 
meaning of the word seonial, which is simply the 
original word anglicized, is considered in chap. xiv. 
I will simply say in this connection, that the English 
word eternal, or everlasting, in the sense of endless, 
is not a correct translation of the original word. It 
is very plain, from the above definition, that the word 
seonial refers to a certain kind of life ; not to its 
duration, whether endless or otherwise ; seonial sig- 
nifies a life of a certain nature, and that nature Jesus 
declares ; seonial life is knowledge of God and Christ. 
This is "the life being life" — the real, the true life; 
any lower existence, from the Bible standpoint, is 
death. 

But from this second definition of life follows a 
corresponding definition of death ; if life is knowledge 
of God, death must be ignorance of God; and this 
thought we have exactly expressed in Eph. iv. 18. 
The apostle exhorts the Ephesian Christians not to 
walk, u as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their 
mind; having the understanding darkened, being 
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance 
that is in them because of the blindness of their 
heart." Here, then, we have the very thought brought 
out that ignorance of God is death; to be alienated 
from the life of God is death; and men are so alien- 
ated through the ignorance thai is in them; it is 
because "the world knoweth not God" thai it is in a 
condition of alienation and death — alienated from 
the life of God through the ignorance thai is in them* 



Bible Harmony. 253 

And now see, moreover, how this view of life and 
death accords with the other we have noticed. To 
be carnally minded is death, and ignorance of God is 
death ; to be carnally minded is to be spiritually 
ignorant, because the one that minds the things of 
the flesh, or " the natural man," cannot receive " the 
things of the spirit of God " ; such things are even 
foolishness unto him (1 Cor. ii. 13-16), and he can- 
not know them ; hence, so long as he remains car- 
nally minded, he must continue in ignorance, and by 
that ignorance he will be alienated from the life of 
God. It is only by the spirit that we are led into 
truth ; and all truth is knowledge of God, so that as 
to be carnally minded and ignorant is death, so to be 
spiritually minded and to know God is life seonial. 

All this is still further confirmed when we consider 
the reason that Paul gives why it is death to be car- 
nally minded. " Because the carnal mind is enmity 
against God, it is not subject to the laAV of God, 
neither indeed can be." The word rendered " enmity " 
means estrangement, alienation ; it occurs in the 
enumeration of the works of the flesh in Gal. v. 20, 
where it is rendered "hatred." Thus does it appear 
again that death is a condition of estrangement and 
alienation from God — " alienated from the life of 
God." Now the apostle James says : " Every man is 
tempted when he is drawn away of his own desires 
and enticed ; and when desire hath conceived it bring- 
eth forth sin ; and sin when it is finished bringeth forth 
death." This scripture is only another way of put- 
ting Paul's statement that " the wages of sin is death." 



254 Bible Harmony. 

Now see how perfectly all this is illustrated in the 
primal sin (Gen. iii.). 

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good 
for food, and that it was pleasant [margin, a desire'] 
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise 
[thus was she drawn away of her own desire and 
enticed], she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, 
and gave also unto her husband with her and he did 
eat " : thus when desire had conceived it brought 
forth sin. Xow what was the result? was sin fin- 
ished? did it bring forth death? It most certainly 
did, according to the Bible definition of death that 
we have been considering. Death is the carnal 
condition of alienation, estrangement, and ignorance 
of God. This condition was immediately apparent 
after our first parents had sinned, for the very next 
time that God drew near unto them they hid them- 
selves from him. Did not this foolish act manifest 
most plainly their alienation from God? and did it 
not also show their ignorance of him ? For avIio can 
hide from him, to whom the darkness and the light 
are both alike (Psa. cxxxix.)? Thus is it very appar- 
ent that death worked in them : they became alien- 
ated from the life of God; they died the death that 
very day ; that very moment of their sin they died: 
as God had said, k *In the day thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt surely die." The Lord did not mean physical 
death when lie said this. Adam lived nine hundred 
and thirty years before he was laid beneath the sod: 
and God declared that he should thus die, i.e. phys- 
ically, when he said, u Dust thou art and unto dust 



Bible Harmony. 255 

slialt thou return." But when lie said, "In the clay 
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," he referred 
to the death in sin, the carnal mind ; and this was 
the death that came upon them immediately after 
their sin, as was plainly evinced by their conduct; 
and thus " By one man in whom all have sinned [i.e. 
in whom all are counted sinners], sin entered into 
the world and death by sin, and so death passed 
upon all men." All died in Adam ; the race died, 
and is dead, — " no life in them," — none of the life 
that is really life. 

This is the death that sin brought into the world. 
This was the death that Christ entered into, when 
"the word was made flesh," — "made in the likeness 
of sinful flesh," — as we have already noticed. I 
cannot tell how Christ could enter into such a 
death, — a condition of alienation, estrangement, 
and ignorance, but I know that he did, because so 
the scriptures abundantly teach. We have quite 
fully considered this point in chap, v., and the con- 
siderations of this chapter are further confirmation 
of * the same. It was while in this dreadful con- 
dition — while he was a dweller in this charnel house 
of corruption and death — that Jesus " offered up 
prayers and supplications, with strong crying and 
tears, unto him that was able to save out of death, 
and was heard, in that he feared ; for though he was 
a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things that 
he suffered " (Heb. v. 7, 8, new version, margin). 
This was the death that Christ died, the real death ; 
this is the death in which the whole human race is 



256 Bible Harmony. 

involved ; and this is the death from which Christ 
delivers us, as he himself says, "I am come that 
they might have life, and that they might have it 
more abundantly." In this view of the case it will 
be seen that salvation is life, and the life is the light 
(John i. 4). 

Now all this, like everything else, is " of God." 
It was God that made the creation, subject to vanity. 
God did the sowing. " Sown in corruption, raised 
in incorruption ; sown in dishonor, raised in glory ; 
sown in weakness, raised in power ; sown a natural 
body, raised a spiritual body." The apostle is not 
talking about physical death here. We are accus- 
tomed to read this scripture at the funeral services 
of our loved ones, and we think that when we put 
their hallowed remains into the ground, then it is 
that it is sown in corruption, dishonor, and weakness. 
But I think this conception is erroneous. Man was 
sown in corruption, dishonor, and weakness, when 
the creation was made subject to vanity by the 
Creator himself, as we have seen in chap, iv., and 
that corruption, dishonor, and weakness, coming 
through the one man, passed upon all men, and 
adheres to fallen man all through this experience 
on the natural plane; for God's rule is, first the 
natural, afterwards that which is spiritual. The 
natural is one part of the process of creation, and 
the spiritual is another part. The spiritual refers 
to the finished product, — completed, perfected. To 
be spiritual in the fullest sense is to be finished, 
"a perfect man " ; but the finishing ls also a process, 



Bible Harmony. 257 

as Paul sets forth in Eph. iv. 11-16. " Till we all 
come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge 
of the Son of God [which is life], unto a perfect 
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness 
of Christ." In the process of man's creation, the 
natural and spiritual lap, and thus "the outward 
man is perishing while the inward man is being 
renewed day by day." Life and death works in the 
same person, but life shall triumph at last. 

All this we have said is " of God." What is the 
purpose of it? What is the purpose of death in 
God's economy ? This dread enemy of man must be 
for some good purpose, in the economy of God, or it 
would never have had a place in his universe. What 
is that purpose ? CrocVs way to life is through death. 
This is a great mystery, and we can only speak of it 
partially, for it is among the things " hard to be 
uttered " ; and yet it is the plain, positive teaching 
of the Word that God's way of life is through suffer- 
ing and death. 

Jesus Christ was made "perfect through suffer- 
ing," and " if ive suffer with him we shall reign with 
him." Jesus himself says, " The hour is come in 
which the Son of Man shall be glorified. Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall 
into the ground and die, it abide th alone ; but if it 
die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth 
his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in 
this world, shall keep it unto life eternal." Here is 
the whole great mystery : to save 3^our life you 
must lose it ; to live you must die — a truth that is 



258 Bible Harmony. 

as manifest in nature as in grace. Paul says, in an- 
swer to the question, "How are the dead raised?" 
" That which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
die " ; it does not live except it die. This is God's 
way ever and always ; through suffering, sorrow, 
darkness, sin, and death, to rest, happiness, light, holi- 
ness, and life. Hence the apostle's great desire is that 
"he might know Christ, and the power of his resur- 
rection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made 
conformable unto his death, if by any means he might 
attain unto the resurrection of the dead " ; thus imply- 
ing that being made conformable unto Christ's death 
is one of the means whereby we are to attain unto his 
resurrection. Hence Paul says again, " I have been 
crucified with Christ"; "I bear about in my body the 
dying of the Lord Jesus " ; "I die daily " ; " God for- 
bid that I should glory save in the cross [death] of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is cruci- 
fied unto me, and I unto the world." Why all this ? 
Because " if we be dead with Christ, we believe that 
we shall also live with him " ; " if we suffer with him, 
we shall reign with him." Death is God's means of 
deliverance. " Forasmuch as the children are par- 
takers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise 
took part of the same, that through death he might 
destroy him that had the power of death: that is. the 
devil, and deliver them who through fear of death 
were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. ii. 
14, 15). Again, we are told that Jesus Christ " is the 
mediator of the new covenant, that A// means of death 
for the redemption of the transgressions that were 



Bible Harmony. 259 

under the first covenant, they which are called might 
receive the promise of eternal inheritance " (Heb. ix. 
15) ; and yet again the apostle writes to the Colossians 
saying, " And you, that were sometime alienated and 
enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath 
he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, 
to present you holy, and unblameable, and unreprove- 
able in his sight " (Col. i. 21, 22). Is not all this plain 
enough? Can we not see this great principle in 
God's economy that to gain life we must lose it, — to 
live we must die " ; that " by means of death " we are 
delivered out of death? All this is certainly scrip- 
tural, whether we understand it or not. " Through 
death " God's children are delivered out of bondage, 
and brought to life. 

This is a great mystery : and whether I have helped 
the reader to understand it or not I know not. " A 
man can receive nothing except it be given him from 
heaven." He that hath not the life will not have the 
light ; but at any rate, the fact is plainly set forth 
that death plays an important part in God's economy ; 
it is God's way of deliverance and of life. " That 
which thou sowest does not live except it die ; . . . 
so also is the resurrection of the dead." " He that 
would save his life must lose it." These considera- 
tions also will help us to understand something of 

THE SECOND DEATH. 

I do not know why we should conclude that " the 
second death " is a different kind of death, and for a 
different purpose than all the rest. If, as is certainly 



260 Bible Harmony. 

the case, God's way of life is through death, death 
actually being a means of deliverance as we have 
seen ; then why may not the second death be for the 
same purpose, and to the same end? I am well 
aware how strange and utterly erroneous such a view 
will appear to most Christians. But in view of the 
considerations presented in this volume it will, after 
a little thought, be seen to be by no means untenable. 
Of course this view will not be accepted by one who 
blindly believes in an endless hell ; those, too, who 
look upon the second death as the " eternal death " 
will reject this view ; but let it be remembered that 
there is no such thing in scripture as an endless, or 
eternal death. These points will be further consid- 
ered in chap. xiv. 

Moreover, the scriptures that speak specifically of 
the second death will not bear the construction put 
upon them by those who believe in an eternal death 
and an endless hell. Nowhere in the Bible is this 
subject spoken of except in the book of the Revela- 
tion; there are passages in other parts of the New 
Testament that are supposed to refer to the second 
death, but only in the last book of the Bible is the 
subject positively referred to. It is certainly reasona- 
ble that the doctrine expressed by the phrase "second 
death," should be in harmony with those passages 
where alone the phrase is used; the doctrine should 
not go beyond these scriptures, nor include anything 
not plainly embraced in the record. The passages 
where this expression occurs arc as follows: Rev. 
ii. 11; xx. 6, 14; xxi. 8. An examination o( these 



Bible Harmony. 261 

passages will show that they do not necessarily 
imply endless torment, or an eternal death; they 
will readily bear another construction in harmony 
with the foregoing suggestions and with the general 
purpose of death in God's economy. In fact, the 
reader will find that the idea of an endless hell or 
an eternal death will not harmonize with these pas- 
sages at all ; in the place of the phrase " second 
death," let the attempt be made to substitute in 
these passages the expression endless torments, or 
eternal death, and it will at once be seen how utterly 
out of harmony the passages are with these dogmas. 
The intelligent reader will also perceive that such 
an interpretation of these passages would place 
them in opposition to the general teaching of the 
Word as set forth in the preceding pages. We 
have seen that the outcome of God's creative plan 
is all things gathered together in Christ, all things 
reconciled to God, all things subdued, all things 
made new, and God all in all. Let us not interpret 
single passages in such a way as to annul or belittle 
these grand and soul-inspiring declarations. 

The principle reason, however, why I believe that 
the second death is not a finality, but a means to 
an end, and that end a good and blessed one, is 
because of the great Bible truth that finally death 
itself shall be destroyed, so that there shall come a 
time when there shall absolutely be " no more death." 
Of course this destruction includes all death, first 
and second, and all the rest. Death — everything that 
comes under that head — shall be destroyed, " swal- 



262 Bible Harmony. 

lowed up in victory." Now what does this imply ? 
How shall death be destroyed ? 

Looking at the question independent of scripture, 
we might say that the ultimate destruction of death 
might refer i o the time when no more would die ; all 
having died that were to die, the rest would live for- 
ever; hence death would be destroyed; there would be 
no more death ; this would be a possible wa}~ of 
explaining the scriptural declaration that death shall 
ultimately be destroyed. Another explanation would 
be that the destruction of death implies the ultimate 
restoration to life of all mankind ; as to destroy life 
means to kill, to destroy death ought to mean to 
make alive ; and when we are told in the Bible that 
death shall ultimately be destroyed, the significance 
of that declaration is that all held under the power 
of death will ultimate^ be delivered ; and that death 
would not be destroyed so long as there was one soul 
held under its power, and if some are to die eternally 
then death will never be destroyed. This latter view 
might seem to some extreme, and yet all must admit 
that it is not unwarranted by the declaration that 
death shall be destroyed. Death is a state or condi- 
tion of mankind, and that state or condition cannot 
be destroyed until all mankind in that condition are 
delivered from it. In order to destroy sickness out 
of the world it would be necessary to make everybody 
well; to destroy poverty you must make everybody 
rich; to destroy life you must put everyone to death ; 
to destroy death you must make every one alive. 
This view is certainly reasonable and perfectly lcLjiti- 



Bible Harmony. 263 

mate ; and it certainty is preferable to the other, in 
that it is a broader and grander view of the final 
destruction of the last enemy. In the former view 
there is no destruction of anything at all. Of course 
the time will come when the last one will have died, 
and the rest of mankind being made immortal will 
never die ; hence one might say " there shall be no 
more death " ; and yet this declaration would be 
scarcely applicable to such a condition of things, 
but rather " there shall be no more dying" Such a 
view would rather imply the destruction of dying, i.e. 
the cessation of dying as an act, rather than the 
destruction of death as a state. In this view, strictly 
speaking, death is not destroyed at all; nothing is 
destroyed, but simply men cease to die ; it is merely 
the cessation of an occurrence, and not the destruc- 
tion of anything at all. However, one might say, 
with some degree of plausibility, that this view covers 
the idea of the destruction of death. The other view 
certainly covers that idea ; if all who are held under 
the power of death are delivered therefrom forever, 
then surely the state of death is destroyed most thor- 
oughly, and we could say, with the utmost positive- 
ness, " there shall be no more death." This latter 
view is grand and glorious, and implies the special 
interposition of almighty power in order to deliver 
mankind and thus to destroy death ; it would be a 
work worthy of God and which only God could do; 
it would be a grand consummation of the plan of the 
ages, according to which Christ is to reign until he 
hath put all enemies under his feet, and the last 



264 Bible Harmony. 

enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Here are 
these two views of the destruction of death contrasted. 
Now which view is scriptural? that is the question. 
The latter view is the grander and most godlike ; the 
former view makes the destruction of death to be 
comparatively a very small affair, simply the cessation 
by limitation of dying ; but if that view is the scrip- 
tural one, of course every lover of God's Word will 
bow to its authority. But if the latter view is the 
scriptural one, as well as the grand and glorious one, 
then of course we will accept that as not only per- 
fectly satisfactory, but as scriptural. Now which is 
scriptural ? 

In the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, Paul 
speaks of the destruction of death. He quotes from 
the Old Testament, viz. Isa. xxv. 6-8, and Hos. xiii. 
14. Turning to those passages we find the scriptural 
explanation of the destruction of death, viz. that it 
implies a restoration to life, and favor, and blessed- 
ness. Hear it: "And in this mountain [i.e. the 
mountain of God's kingdom: compare Isa. ii. 2-5] 
shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast 
of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things 
full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined; and 
he will destroy [margin, swallow ujp"\ in this mountain 
the face of the covering cast over all people, and the 
vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow 
up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe 
away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke o( his 
people shall he take away from oft' all the earth. For 
the Lord hath spoken it/' 



Bible Harmony. 265 

Now whoever can see in this glorious explanation 
of the destruction of death nothing but a reference to 
the time when dying shall cease, — those who are dead 
being eternally dead, and those who are living being 
immortal, — those who can see nothing more than this 
in this language must be, so it seems to me, wanting 
in spiritual discernment. Why, the language actu- 
ally labors, with almost redundant prodigality, to 
express the richness and fulness of the feast to all 
people, and the victory over death. " The Lord of 
hosts will make unto all people a feast of fat things," 
— that is not sufficient to express its richness — "a 
feast of wines on the lees," — and then the prophet 
repeats with added emphasis — " of fat things full of 
marrow" — the very richest kind of fat — "of wines 
on the lees well refined" — the sweetest kind of sweet 
wine, and that which has the most " body." And he 
will swalloiv up in this mountain the face of the cov- 
ering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread 
over all nations. "He will swallow up death in vic- 
tory." It is not sufficient, it would seem, to simply 
say that the Lord will remove the covering of blind- 
ness and death cast over all people, and that he will 
destroy death, or be victorious over it, but he will 
swallow up this awful covering, and swallow up in 
victory the last enemy, death. 

The passage in Hosea is even more explicit and 
positive than the one just noticed. " O Israel, thou 
hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help ; . . . I 
will ransom them from the power of the grave. I 
will redeem them from death. O death, I will be thy 



266 Bible Ha 



rmony. 



plagues ! O grave, I will be thy destruction ! Re- 
pentance [change of purpose] shall be hid from mine 
eyes." This passage amounts to an exact definition 
of what is meant by the destruction of death. To 
destroy death means to ransom and redeem from its 
power. Thus shall death be destroyed ; and such a 
destruction is in keeping with the remarkable declara- 
tion that death shall be swallowed up in victory ; and 
it is also in harmony with Paul's triumphant apostro- 
phe to death — " O death, where is thy sting ? O 
grave, where is thy victory?" If there is such a 
thing as endless death, if death has a sting that rank- 
les eternally, then surely the triumphant tone of the 
above exclamation seems to be rather gratuitous. 
But if the sting of death is to be eternally destroyed, 
and the dark realm of the grave ultimately despoiled 
of every victim, then, indeed, may we shout exultant : 
" O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy 
victory ? " 

I cannot tell how the above scriptures and consid- 
erations will impress my readers, but to me they are 
absolutely conclusive as to the significance of the 
Bible declaration of the destruction of death — not 
simply the cessation of dying, but the absolute 
deliverance of all the dead — dead in any sense — and 
their restoration to the blessed life of God; nothing 
short of this, it seems to me, will measure up even 
to the apparent meaning (to say nothing about its 
deeper, richer, unexpressed significance) of the Lan- 
guage of scripture upon this subject. Hence am I Led 
to believe that the second death is not an exception 



Bible Harmony. 207 

in God's economy, but, like death in the present time, 
it is for the deliverance and restoration of those who 
are exercised thereby. If, notwithstanding the del- 
uge of fire and brimstone upon Sodom, it is yet to 
return to its " former estate " to be blessed and saved, 
and if this case is a pattern case, then it would not 
be so very strange if the " lake of fire and brimstone, 
which is the second death," should not entirely cut 
off from hope those who are engulfed within its fiery 
billows ; especially so, since some are " saved by fire " ; 
and more especially so, since death in God's economy 
is a means of deliverance and the way of life. " He 
that is able to receive it, let him receive it." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

BESTJRRECTION. 

The preceding pages of this volume, and espe- 
cially the two preceding chapters, have prepared us 
for the consideration of the all-important subject of 
the resurrection. I would bespeak the reader's care- 
ful attention to this subject, for it is the keystone to 
the arch of Christianity. It would be no wonder if 
the reader is surprised at this statement, seeing so 
little is made of this doctrine by the modern church ; 
but if he is at all familiar with the New Testament, 
a little thought and study will convince him that 
the truth is not overstated, and he will, perhaps, be 
led to inquire how a doctrine so profoundly funda- 
mental has fallen into such disuse. 

Paul considered the doctrine of so much impor- 
tance that he even goes so far as to say that "if 
there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ 
not risen, and if Christ be not risen, then is our 
preaching vain, and your faith is also vain : ye are 
yet in your sins, and are of all men most miserable : 
then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are 
perished" ; and yet this is the doctrine that is scarcely 
ever mentioned or even referred to in the Christian 
pulpits of to-day. Well did Adam Clark say. "There 
is not a doctrine of the gospel on which more stress 

268 



Bible Harmony. 269 

is laid, and there is not a doctrine in the present 
system of preaching which is treated with more 
neglect." The fact is, that the modern false theo- 
logical idea of entering at once upon our reward 
or punishment at death has nullified and rendered 
needless, and almost farcical, the tremendous Bible 
doctrines upon which the whole Christian system 
depends, of resurrection and judgment. 

Now the question that we wish to try and answer 
is this : What is meant in the Bible by a resurrec- 
tion ? Many Christians would readily reply to this 
question, that a resurrection is simply the dead com- 
ing back to life, and they would think that the whole 
subject was thus settled and disposed of. But a 
little thought will soon convince one that such an 
answer is far from being satisfactory. How many 
resurrections have there been, thus far, since the 
creation ? The Bible reveals but one, that of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and we are distinctly told that he 
was the "first that should rise from the dead " 
(Acts xxvi. 23 ; Col. i. 18) ; and yet we know that 
several persons have been raised from the dead, both 
in the Old and New Testament times. Elijah raised 
the widow's son ; Christ raised the ruler's daughter, 
Lazarus, and others, and Peter raised Dorcas; but we 
can see at once that these were not resurrections. 
These were simply instances of bringing back the 
physically dead to physical life again, and when 
thus brought back they were still under the domin- 
ion of death, and must just as surely die again as 
though they had never been the subjects of such a 



270 Bible Harmony. 

marvellous experience. But those " who obtain the 
resurrection from the dead " cannot die (Luke xx. 
35, 36) ; they, like Christ, are " raised up from the 
dead, no more to return to corruption (Acts xiii. 34) ; 
" death hath no more dominion over them " (Rom. 
vi. 9). A resurrection, then, is an absolute deliver- 
ance from the dominion of death. Resurrection life 
is not like our present existence, so far under the 
dominion of death that fallen man is actually 
reckoned as dead already (see Matt. viii. 22 ; 2 Cor. 
v. 14) ; resurrection life is a life absolutely beyond 
the reach of death ; those who obtain that life cannot 
die. All this must be plain to eA^ery thoughtful 
Christian and should be kept distinctly in mind in 
studying this subject. In harmony with this Bible 
view of the resurrection, it will be seen that it is 
man's great hope, and greatest blessing ; the hope of 
the resurrection (Acts xxiii. 6 ; xxiv. 15) is the hope 
of deliverance from the bondage of corruption — life 
from the dead. 

Is not this view of the resurrection clearly taught ? 
that is, that a resurrection is something more than 
a return to physical life ? and }^et many seem to be 
utterly unable to see it, and those, too, who have 
made the subject a special study. For example, 
there comes to my table every month a very excel- 
lent pamphlet especially devoted to the elucidation 
and emphasizing of this much-neglected doctrine : 
the editor rightly maintaining that this doctrine is 
the very marrow and spirit of the gospel and the 
hope of the race; and yet in that pamphlet the editor 



Bible Harmony. 271 

refers to the raising of Lazarus as " the resurrection 
of Lazarus." Now is not this a misuse of the term 
resurrection? Was the raising of Lazarus from the 
dead a resurrection ? I think not. Lazarus was 
raised from physical death back again to physical 
life, but he was not raised " out from among the 
dead ones " ; this is a literal translation of Phil, 
iii. 11, also of 1 Pet. i. 3, and these words exactly 
express the truth. Remember that according to the 
Bible the mere animal man is in a condition of 
death, whether he be beneath the sod or above it. 
" Let the dead bury their own dead " ; the corpse 
that was being buried was no more dead in this 
Bible sense than those who were burying it. " Ex- 
cept ye eat my flesh and drink my blood ye have no 
life in you " ; no one can be any more dead than 
that ; no life in them ; and yet those to whom Christ 
uttered these words were alive as we speak, but in 
the Bible sense they were dead, utterly destitute of 
any life. A resurrection delivers us from this death, 
the death of fallen man, and puts us into possession 
of "the life that is life indeed"; by a resurrection 
one is delivered " out from among the dead ones " 
altogether, and placed upon a plain where he cannot 
die any more. Lazarus passed through no such pro- 
cess as this ; he was still under the power of death 
after he was raised, just the same as before, and after 
a while he was again laid away in the tomb. Hence 
to speak of " the resurrection of Lazarus " is a mis- 
use of the term, and shows a misapprehension of the 
truth in regard to this great subject. No one tyit 



272 Bible Harmony. 

Christ has as yet had a resurrection ; he was the 
"first that should rise from the dead," in the full 
and perfect sense ; and this, by the way, is another 
evidence that Lazarus did not have a resurrection ; 
for if he did, then Christ would not have been the first 
to have passed through that experience. Jesus was 
" raised up from the dead [literally, out from among 
the dead ones], no more to return to corruption" 
(Acts xiii. 34). He says, "I am he that liveth and 
was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore " ; and 
every one that is " made conformable unto his death," 
and comes to know " the power of his resurrection," 
will, like him, "never die," being in this respect 
"equal unto the angels." We see, then, what a resur- 
rection is ; something quite otherwise and far superior 
to anything that Lazarus passed through, although 
his experience was most wonderful. Resurrection 
is the consummation of the creative process, the 
entrance into the perfect life. 

The word resurrection, from the Latin resurgo, 
means to rise or stand up again ; the original wind 
in the New Testament (anastasis^) means a making 
to rise or stand up; a restoration; a setting up again: 
a rebuilding. In Luke ii. 3-4 the word is rendered 
"rising again." The word, then, means a restoration : 
a rebuilding. "By man came deatli : by man came 
also the restoration of the dead." Man lias two repre- 
sentatives, Adam and Christ; by the former came 
death, by the latter conies the restoration o( the dead. 
We have seen in the preceding chapter the nature of 
tli£ death that came by Adam: also the life that 



Bible Harmony. 273 

Christ imparts ; not mere physical existence ; that, in 
the Bible, as we have seen, is not counted as life at 
all, but the life being life, the real, the non-forfeit- 
able life ; the life over which death has no domin- 
ion. These considerations make the resurrection 
plain ; and every one can see, thereby, that nothing 
short of full deliverance from death and entrance 
into the perfect life should be spoken of as a resur- 
rection. 

Now we will advance a step further. As there 
are two judgments, — " judgment unto victory " and 
" judgment unto condemnation, " — so there are two 
resurrections, — "the resurrection of life" and u the 
resurrection of judgment." We find these two ex- 
pressions in John v. 29. 

The reader is doubtless aware that the word in 
this passage that is rendered " damnation " in the 
common version, means judgment, and should be so 
rendered, and is so rendered in the new version. It 
is the same word that we have already studied in 
chap, xi., meaning, as we have seen, judgment, 
trial, or probation. The rendering of this word "dam- 
nation " in this passage is a striking illustration of the 
blinding effect of formal creeds. Within the com- 
pass of nine verses, here in this connection (verses 
22-30), the original word occurs five times, and is 
translated three different ways. In verse 22 the 
word is rendered judgment, as it should be, or trial ; 
in verse 24 the same word is rendered condemnation ; 
in verse 27, judgment again ; in verse 29, damna- 
tion ; and yet again, in verse 30, judgment. An 



274 Bible Harmony. 

examination of the context will clearly show that the 
reason for these unwarranted variations in the ren- 
dering of the same word was the influence of the 
creed ; the creed taught that when a wicked man 
died — " they that have done evil " — his case was 
hopeless ; he must henceforth and forever suffer the 
torments of hell ; hence the word could not mean 
here what it meant elsewhere (as for instance in the 
passage, "judgment unto victory"), and so they took 
the liberty to change it according to their creed ; the 
grim and ominous word " damnation " suited the 
creed, and therefore damnation it was. We have 
seen, however, that resurrection is always a blessing ; 
and to speak of the resurrection of damnation is as 
absurd and incongruous as to speak of the blessing 
of damnation. When Paul says that he has hope 
toward God, that there will be a resurrection, both 
of the just and of the unjust (Acts xxiv. 15), he 
certainly intimates that this hope is in some way to 
be a blessing to both parties ; so ip the scripture we 
are studying, however the expression "resurrection 
of judgment " may be understood, it seems to me 
that it must certainly be conceded from the signifi- 
cance of the two words singly, that in conjunction 
they must mean something favorable ; judging from 
the use of these words in other scripture, and the 
strict meaning of the Avords themselves, it would be 
a most unwarranted departure from uniformity and 
consistency, to use them in this passage to express 
;m unmitigated and never-ending disaster. What. 
then, is the meaning of this expression, " resurrec- 



Bible Htirmony. 275 

lion of judgment " ? Our consideration of the two 
subjects of the Judgment, and of Life and Death, 
will enable us to answer this question. 

We have seen that creation is a process ; a part of 
that process — the finishing part as we might say — 
is judgment, and the consummation of that process is 
resurrection. This process of creation is divided into 
two stages, the animal and the spiritual, and God's 
order is first the animal, afterward that which is 
spiritual (1 Cor. xv. 46). We have seen that these 
two terms indicate the fallen and the restored condi- 
tion respectively ; and as both are parts of the one 
process of creation, so each is a process in itself as 
the scripture indicates, "though our outward man 
is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day 
by day." The great mass of mankind are still in 
the mere animal condition ; they live and die in that 
condition, because, as we have seen, the probation or 
judgment of the majority of men comes after death ; 
i.e. they will not until then enter upon the spiritual 
or finishing process : as already intimated, judgment 
has to do with this spiritual part of the process of 
man's creation, and the consummation of it is resur- 
rection ; the resurrection of judgment then refers to 
this spiritual or finishing process. There is a class, 
the firstfruits, who have their judgment in this 
present age ; they hear his Word and believe on him 
that sent Christ, and possess the life of faith, — " the 
life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of 
God." Hence they will not come into the general 
judgment, but have passed from death unto life by 



276 Bible Harmony. 

faith — " now the just shall live by faith " ; and these 
come forth unto the resurrection of life, i.e. they enter 
into the full and perfect life before the day of gen- 
eral judgment, for they are the judges, to instruct, 
and discipline, and save the race. The meaning of 
the passage then is as follows : 

" They that have done good come forth unto the 
resurrection of life " ; that is, they come forth from 
their graves unto the completion of the spiritual stage 
of creation, which is life, " the life that is life indeed." 
" And they that have done evil unto the resurrection of 
judgment " ; that is, they come forth from their graves 
unto the beginning of the spiritual stage of creation, 
which is judgment or probation. They that come 
forth unto the resurrection of life " have part in the 
first resurrection,' ' " but the rest of the dead " [i.e. 
the rest of the dead and fallen race] " live not " [in 
the true sense] "until the thousand years are fin- 
ished." 

All this is eminently scriptural, harmonizing and 
explaining the words of Christ in the passage we are 
examining, and fully according with other scripture 
we have studied, and especially with the plan of the 
ages. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

RETRIBUTION. 

I have borne my testimony on the pages of this vol- 
ume to my uncompromising belief in the awful reality 
of God's retributions. There is no law in God's uni- 
verse more sure than this unrelenting, inexorable law 
of retribution : " Every transgression and disobedi- 
ence shall receive its just recompense of reward." 
" Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
The absolute certainty of punishment should be em- 
phasized and insisted upon ; but to teach its eternity 
is a vital mistake, amounting to a slander upon God 
and a most awful misrepresentation of his character. 
There is punishment in this world for sin, there is 
punishment in the world to come ; and by no feeble 
gasp of repentance at the last moment can this pun- 
ishment be avoided. But the punishments of God are 
salutary and remedial, and though they may be, like 
the punishment upon Sodom, age-lasting in their 
effects, yet the outcome shall be blessing and salva- 
tion. 

The main object of this chapter is to show that the 
doctrine of an endless hell is not supported by scrip- 
ture. I am well aware that the common idea is that 
the Bible teaches the eternity of punishment. Many 
who revolt at the horror of this dogma of endless woe, 

277 



278 Bible Harmony. 

and rebel against its awful shadow, yet feel obliged to 
believe it, because they suppose it is taught in the 
Bible, and many reject the Bible and are practically 
infidels for the same reason. 

We will briefly review the scriptures with reference 
to this dogma of an endless hell. We shall find that 
the passages that seem to support that dogma are 
very few, while the great mass of scriptural evidence 
is decidedly against it. The general teaching of 
scripture on the final destiny of the race, and the 
final outcome of God's plan, is grandly expressed by 
the apostle in his epistle to the Ephesians, — " That in 
the dispensation of the fulness of times [when all the 
ages have run their course] God will gather together 
in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, 
and which are on earth, even in him." 

We will first examine the Old Testament with ref- 
erence to this subject. 

If we search this part of the Bible through from 
Genesis to Malachi, we shall not find a single passage 
that, properly interpreted, affords the slightest sup- 
port for the doctrine of endless torment, and only 
three passages at most that can be made by any 
method of interpretation, even to seem to support this 
doctrine. Here is the state of the case in regard to 
the Old Testamemt; that part of the Word includes 
all of God's revelation for the race for four thousand 
years. Is it not simply inconceivable that, if the 
doctrine of eternal torment is true, God should Leave 
the race for four thousand years without any clear or 
positive light on the subject? The most strenuous 



Bible Harmony. 279 

advocates of this doctrine do not pretend to find any 
support for it in any of the early writings of the Old 
Testament. Neither Moses, nor Samuel, nor Elijah, 
nor Elisha, nor the writers of the historical books, nor 
Ezra, nor Nehemiah, nor David, nor fourteen out of 
the sixteen prophets, say one word that can by any 
possible means be made to teach this doctrine. Can 
it be that this doctrine is true, and the Old Testament 
be thus silent in regard to it ? Would God condemn 
the unfaithful " watchman " for not warning the sin- 
ner, and require his blood at his hand, and yet he 
himself leave mankind for four thousand years un- 
warned of the awful doom that awaited those who 
died in their sins ? 

Let it be noticed that the doctrine we oppose is 
that of endless torments. There is abundance of 
scripture to prove that there is a hell, a gehenna of 
fire, and fearful retribution, both in this world and 
that which is to come ; but these scriptures do not 
teach an endless hell. Many passages are quoted 
to prove this doctrine of endless woe that do not 
touch the subject at all ; for example, the passage 
in Psa. ix. 17 will be quoted with great vehemence 
and emphasis : " The wicked shall be turned into 
hell and all the nations that forget God." " There, 
don't that prove that there is an endless hell for the 
wicked ? " Does it? What is there in this scripture, 
take it Iioav you will, to prove that future punish- 
ment is endless? Truly, nothing; so in Psa. xi. 6 
there is a dreadful punishment threatened against 
the wicked, but not the slightest intimation that that 



280 Bible Harmony. 

punishment will be never-ending. Take for a further 
example such passages as Prov. i. 24, 33 ; Isa. xxx. 
27, 28, 33. These scriptures and others like them 
indicate fearful retributions, but there is nothing in 
any of these passages, though we put upon them the 
very harshest interpretation possible, to teach the 
endlessness of future punishment. I ask the reader's 
special attention to this point. The question is : 
What is there in the Bible to support the doctrine 
of the eternity of future retribution ? 

I have said that there are three passages, and only 
three, in the Old Testament that according to any 
system of interpretation can be made to give apparent 
support to this dogma. There are plenty of scrip- 
tures besides these that speak in strong and unmis- 
takable terms of the punishment of the wicked, but 
none others that can be made to give air^ support 
to the idea of the endlessness of that punishment. 
These three passages are the following : 

Isa. xxxiii. 14 : The whole force of this passage, 
as an argument in favor of endless torments, depends 
on the word rendered " everlasting " ; the signifi- 
cance of this word we shall fully consider in connec- 
tion with scripture in the New Testament; we will 
therefore leave it for the present. We will also post- 
pone the consideration of the second passage for the 
same reason, Dan. xii. 2, where again the whole force 
of the argument turns on the word "everlasting." 

The last passage is Isa, Ixvi. 24. - And they 
shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses o[ the 
men that have transgressed against me; for their 



Bible Harmon//. 281 

worm shall not die ; neither shall their fire be 
quenched ; and they shall be an abhorring to all 
flesh." This it is claimed refers to the future pun- 
ishment of the wicked in hell ; and the statement 
that their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire 
be quenched, proves that they will suffer eternally. 
Two considerations, however, entirely break the force 
of this argument. First, the scene of this passage 
is on this earth and not in hell. Read the context 
and you will see that the restoration of Israel and 
the exaltation of Jerusalem is the theme ; and the 
mention of all nations, horses, chariots, and mules, 
new moons, and sabbaths, and all flesh coining to 
worship, shows that the scene of the passage is this 
earth , hence it cannot be used as a proof in regard 
to an endless hell. Secondly, let it be noticed that 
it is the " carcasses " of these men, i.e. dead bodies, 
corpses, upon which the undying worm and the 
unquenchable fire is feeding. So that if one persist 
in taking the text as describing the torments of hell, 
then they should understand that it is only corpses 
that are cast therein, and hence there is no endless 
suffering. We shall refer to this passage again in 
connection Avith Mark ix. 44, where our Lord quotes 
and comments upon it. We have said enough for 
.the present to show that the passage cannot refer to 
the endless suffering of the lost in hell. 

This is the state of the case in the Old Testa- 
ment ; surely, no one will claim that the doctrine can 
be proved from this part of the Bible. On the other 
hand, the Old Testament is full of the broadest and 



282 Bible Harmony. 

most universal promises ; many of these we have 
already quoted ; many more will be found by him 
who will search, assuring us that the triumph of 
the right will ultimately be universal and absolute. 1 
The entire Old Testament, in what it says and what 
it omits to say, presents a most sweeping and invin- 
cible argument in favor of the final "restitution of 
all things " ; and in view of this fact, we would say 
with Canon Farrar in his "Mercy and Judgment": 
" Those who really reverence God's Word will see 
from these passages, and ten times as many more, 
that they may trust in the loving kindness of the Lord 
for their sad and suffering brethren, no less than for 
themselves, and that if God is forced to punish, it is 
only because he loves. No bigotry, no ignorance, no 
hard theology, no angry anathemas shall rob us of one 
inch of the breadth of hope which these words in- 
spire. If we had no book of scripture left us but 
the single book of Job, we should see from that 
alone, that for the champions of a pitiless ' orthodoxy ' 
God feels nothing but disapproval. He does not 
strive to silence the natural cry of the human heart. 
He has never reproved the natural sense of horror 
Avhich, with a God forbid ! flings from it the syllo- 
gisms of a loveless and unspiritual logic."* 

Now we turn to the New Testament. If the dor- 
trine of endless torments is taught in the Bible, it 
must be in the New Testament, for it cannot be 

1 See, i'«>r example, l'sa. mi. 27, 28 ; briv. 9 ; Ixv, '2 ; Iwi. I ; 
lxvii. 7; lxxxvi. \) ; cxiii. .">. Isa. xlv. 21-24. Compare Rom. riv. 
11, new version, margin ; Micah \ii. is. lit. 



Bible Harmony. 283 

proved from the Old ; and even in the New Testa- 
ment there are only a very few texts that the doc- 
trine can lean upon. The passages that are most 
generally relied upon to prove this doctrine are the 
parables of the tares and the wheat, the ten virgins, 
and the rich man and Lazarus ; the scriptures that 
refer to the so-called unpardonable sin ; those that 
speak of the punishment of the wicked as "ever- 
lasting " ; those that refer to the undying worm and 
the quenchless fire ; the case of Judas, " the son of 
perdition," and the lake of fire and brimstone, which 
is the second death ; besides several isolated pas- 
sages, such as, " He that believeth not the Son shall 
not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." 
This passage is sometimes triumphantly referred to 
as a proof-text for endless torments, as though it 
read, the wrath of God abideth on him eternally. 
Suppose we take it in that sense ; what would it 
teach? Why, that all who did not believe on the 
Lord, at the time when these words were uttered, 
would be eternally lost; did Christ mean to teach 
any such thing as that? Certainly not; the teach- 
ing of the passage is simply to the effect that as long 
as one remains in unbelief, he cannot see life, but the 
wrath of God abideth on him. " The life that I now 
live," says Paul, "I live by the faith of the Son of 
God"; the unbeliever knows nothing of this life, but 
is under God's wrath and curse; this is a matter of 
fact, but there is nothing in the passage to indicate 
that he will remain so forever. Again, the advo- 
cates of an endless hell quote, " He that believeth 



284 Bible Harmony. 

not, shall be damned " ; true, but it does not say 
that he shall be damned (condemned) to all eternity; 
the unbeliever shall be condemned, the wicked shall 
be cast into hell, the wrath of God abideth on them 
as long as they remain in a condition of unbelief and 
wickedness ; but that their case is hopeless and 
irremediable, these scriptures nowise affirm. I have 
heard one passage quoted with great confidence, to 
prove that the wicked dead are hopelessly lost. 
Christ said to the Jews (John viii. 21), " Ye shall 
seek me and shall die in your sins ; whither I go ye 
cannot come " ; this is the way the passage reads : 
it is usually quoted, " whither I go ye shall never 
come " ; it does not say that, but that is the way it 
is usually quoted, and the inference is that Christ 
declared that those wicked Jews would be lost for- 
ever; but now we have positive evidence that Christ 
did not mean any such thing, for in John xiii. 83, 
he uses the very same language to his disciples. 
"Ye shall seek me, and as I said unto the Jew*. 
whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say to 3'ou." 
It will be seen that whatever these words meant to 
the Jews, they meant the same thing to his disciples ; 
hence they could not have the meaning of a hope- 
less doom. 

Now letus glance briefly at the other scriptures 
we have referred to as being relied upon to sustain 
the endless hell idea. 

The parables of the lares and wheat (Matt. xiii.). 
of the ten virgins (Matt, xxv.), and of the rich man 
and Lazarus (Luke \\i.): What is there in any one 



Bible Harmony. 285 

of these parables to indicate the eternity of punish- 
ment ? In Christ's explanation of the parable of the 
tares and wheat we read, " The Son of man shall 
send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of 
his kingdom all things that offend, and them which 
do iniquity ; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire ; 
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." This 
scripture indicates some dreadful punishment ; but is 
there any intimation here that it is to be endless ? 
Surely, no one will claim that there is. So with the 
parable of the ten virgins ; the foolish virgins came 
after the door was shut, and the Lord said, I know you 
not, and the}^ failed to get in to the marriage. Well, 
and what then ? " Why," says the one who is trying 
to prove an endless hell, " this door to the marriage 
is the door of mercy, and the time will come when 
it will be shut, and Christ will leave the mediatorial 
throne, and those who have not made their peace with 
God will be lost forever." This is about the way 
that this, and other similar scripture {e.g. Luke xiii. 
25-30), are pressed into service in support of this 
dogma. But surely no one will claim that the above 
is positively taught in these parables ; the above 
interpretation is a possible one, perhaps, and there 
may be a dozen other possible explanations of the 
same parable ; but surely no one should build up such 
a tremendous doctrine as that of an endless hell upon 
such doubtful foundation ; there is no such thing 
spoken of in the Bible as a " door of mercy," and if 
there were, I am sure it would never be shut, for we 
are told scores of times that God's mercy "endureth 



286 Bible Harmony. 

forever," and " Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, 
to-day and forever " ; and as to his leaving the media- 
torial throne, we read that "he ever liveth to make 
intercession for us." The truth is that formal doc- 
trines ought not to be built upon such doubtful por- 
tions of scripture as parables, that may be explained 
in several different ways, and one person has just as 
much authority as another to determine which is the 
correct explanation. 

The foregoing remarks will also apply to the para- 
ble of the rich man and Lazarus. Explain this para- 
ble as you will, what is there in it to prove that the 
future punishment of the wicked is endless ? " Why," 
says one, " does not Abraham say to the rich man, 
4 Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so 
that they that would pass from hence to you cannot, 
neither can they pass to us that would come from 
thence ' ? " Yes, he says that ; and are you sure that 
that means that no one ever will pass that gulf, and 
that it is fixed to all eternity ? Would not the very 
same words that Abraham uses to the rich man in 
hell be applicable to the impenitent sinner here in this 
world? Between him and God there is a great gulf 
fixed, and he is utterly unable to pass it ; and if that 
gulf is never bridged, or the sinner never receives 
help, he must remain eternally " far from God." "No 
man can come except the Father draw him." But 
God lias laid help upon one mighty to save, and "now 
in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far oft' are 
made nigh by the blood of Christ." 

Furthermore, let it be noticed that the rich man is 



Bible Harmony. 287 

not in Gehenna, but in Hades (see new version) ; 
the same place that the soul of Christ went to when 
he died (Acts ii. 27) ; and notice, also, that Abraham 
and Lazarus were both in the same place, as is plainly 
indicated in the new version by the insertion of the 
word w * here " in verse 25. And furthermore, let it 
be especially noticed, that the rich man in the para- 
ble is a representative, not of the poor outcast Gen- 
tile, but of the sons of Abraham, church members 
— those who have "Moses and the prophets." The 
rich man does not represent the heathen world, the 
great mass of mankind, but one who, blessed with 
great light and privileges, sins against the former, 
and fails to improve the latter, and so finds himself 
at last in a worse condemnation than as though he 
had never had the light. The parable is written as a 
reproof and warning to the loveless self-righteous 
Pharisee. Let the " brethren " of the rich man in 
these latter days take warning also. At any rate, 
the parable does not touch the question of the final 
destiny of the entire race, and there is certainly no 
positive evidence in it of endless torment. 

I do not pretend to explain this parable, or to 
decide whether it is to be taken as the relation of an 
imaginary circumstance, for the sake of inculcating 
the great lesson that " that which is highly esteemed 
among men is abomination in the sight of God" 
(verse 15), or whether it is the narration of an 
actual occurrence; this portion of scripture has re- 
ceived abundance of attention from many men of 
many creeds, and it will not be difficult for the reader 



288 Bible Harmony. 

to collect together, if be please, a dozen or more dif- 
ferent interpretations ; and he will, of course, accept 
that one that is in harmony with his own views ; but 
let it be remembered that none of these explanations 
are authoritative, and the very fact that there are so 
many of them, should make us hesitate to base an 
important doctrine upon any of them, but to seek 
among the plain, direct statements of Holy Writ, and 
especially in its general drift and scope for the foun- 
dations of our faith. It is not so much to disprove 
the doctrine of endless torment that I write, as to 
show that the Bible, properly interpreted, gives no 
support to that dogma. I do not deny but that there 
are passages in our English version from which this 
doctrine may be inferred. But even these passages 
do not necessarily teach it, and the Bible as a Avhole 
is overwhelmingly opposed to it, as I shall hope to 
show. I am trying to show how much (or rather 
how little} support for this doctrine there is in the 
Bible ; and that it is only by a strained, extreme, and 
harsh interpretation of a few passages that it can be 
supported at all ; and that these few passages so 
interpreted are therein' arrayed against the great mass 
of scriptural teachings. 

We come now to the so-called unpardonable sin. 
Is there such a sin taught in the Bible ? Most Chris- 
tians believe there is. The writer, with all defer- 
ence and diffidence, would record his belief that no 
such sin is taught: but even if there is. it nowhere 
says that that sin is punishable by an eternity o( suf- 
fering, and I do not suppose that any one will claim 



Bible Harmony. 289 

that it does. Here I might rest the subject, so far as 
the immediate point at issue is concerned. But I will 
add a word in hopes of clearing the scriptures from 
some obscurity in this connection, occasioned by mis- 
translations of the original. 

There are certain passages that are supposed to 
teach an unpardonable sin. We will examine Matt. 
xii. 31, 32. If an unpardonable sin is taught any- 
where in the Bible, it is taught in this passage. 

" Wherefore I say unto you all manner of sin and 
blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." According 
to Mark, Christ says, "Verily I say unto you, all 
sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and 
blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme." 
Here is a most sweeping declaration of universal 
forgiveness ; now according to Matthew, the Saviour 
adds, " but the blasphemy against the holy spirit 
shall not be forgiven unto men." If Christ had 
stopped here and said no more, it would be plain 
that one sin was unpardonable, but now read 
the next verse. "And whosoever speaketh a word 
against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; 
but whosoever speaketh against the holy spirit, it 
shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world 
[age, see new version, margin] ; neither in the world 
[age] to come." Now what is the force of this 
language ? 

First, the Lord Jesus proclaims universal amnesty 
for all sins and to all sinners ; then he seems to make 
one exception to this proclamation, but his further 
remarks show that this apparent exception is only a 



290 Bible Harmony. 

modification in point of time as to when certain sins 
may be forgiven. Most sins may be forgiven in 
this world. Some sins not forgiven in this world 
may be forgiven in the world to come. This is 
implied in the Saviour's language ; one sin shall 
not be forgiven in the world to come ; this certainly 
implies that some sins will he forgiven then ; and 
then what is implied as to this one particular sin 
of blasphemy ? — that it is absolutely unpardonable ? 
Will the language bear such a construction? The 
blasphemy against the holy spirit shall not be for- 
given, neither in this age nor in the age to come. 
Does this language teach that this sin will never be 
forgiven ? Does it not rather imply that it may be 
forgiven in some of the bright ages to come, whereof 
Paul speaks, wherein the Lord will " show the 
exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward 
us through Christ Jesus " ? However Ave may under- 
stand this word "age," there were certainly many 
of them yet to come at this time when Christ 
spoke, for long afterward Paul speaks of " the ages 
to come " ; hence when Christ says that a certain 
sin will not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in 
the next, it certainly does not positively imply that 
it will not be forgiven in some subsequent age, but 
rather, if anything, it implies that it will be forgiven. 
But does it not say in Mark iii. 29, that "he that 
shall blaspheme against the holy spirit hath never 
forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation "? 
and does not this settle the question of an unpardon- 
able sin? It would settle it if the translation was 



Bible Harmony. 291 

correct, but it is not ; and yet the error is perpetuated 
in the new version, because if they had translated 
it correctly it would have endangered the creed. 

The words rendered "hath, never forgiveness " are 
literally " hath not forgiveness to the age." Those 
who have the Emphatic Diaglott will find it thus, 
both in the text and in the interlineal translation. I 
will also give another authority for this rendering 
that no scholar will question, neither can any one 
doubt his orthodoxy, viz. Dr. Robert Young. In his 
Bible translation the passage under consideration is 
rendered thus: "Whosoever may speak evil in re- 
gard to the holy spirit hath not forgiveness to the 
age, but is in danger of age-during judgment." 
There is no better authority in the world to-day, on 
a point of this kind, than Dr. Young ; and the above 
is his rendering ; it will be seen that the passage so 
rendered is in perfect harmony with the one in Matt, 
xii. that we have already considered; the one that 
commits this sin hath not forgiveness to the age, but 
there is no intimation that the offender will remain 
unforgiven to all eternity ; on the contrary, the very 
fact that the period is designated during which this 
sin will not be forgiven, clearly implies that at some 
subsequent period it will be forgiven. The blessed 
fact, then, in regard to this scripture is that instead 
of announcing an unpardonable sin, Christ declares 
that there is no sin unpardonable. "All manner of 
sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." To 
this declaration there is no exception, but only cer- 
tain modifications, as we have seen. Most sins may 



292 Bible Harmony. 

be forgiven in this age ; some sins not forgiven in 
this age may be forgiven in the age to come ; but 
one sin is so heinous in its nature, and so disastrous 
in its effects, that it will not be forgiven, neither in 
this age nor in the age to come. Thus the one 
committing this sin is guilty of an age-during sin; 
or is in danger of age-during judgment; that is to 
say, he has committed a sin, the effect of which 
will be age-during. The new version reads, "is 
guilty of an eternal sin." The word rendered " eter- 
nal" is ceonion, that we have already referred to 
several times, and shall notice particularly a little 
further on. Dr. Young renders it " age-during," 
and he is one of the first linguists of modern times. 
We have already considered the subject of the 
judgment, and in connection with this scripture 
we have an illustration of age-during judgment. 
The Jews committed this sin against the holy spirit 
(Mark hi. 30) ; that is, they attributed to the devil 
the works that Christ performed by the spirit of God 
(Matt. xii. 24, 28), and the consequences of their 
sin have been age-during upon that people. They 
have been "cast off" as a branch from a tree during 
this gospel age; but they shall be "grafted in" again, 
and this their great iniquity shall be pardoned, "for 
God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he 
might have mercy upon all" (Rom. xi.). 

Thus this scripture stands in my mind. I see in 
it no premonition of a hopeless doom : no foreshadow- 
ing of sinners unforgiven to all eternity. However, 
should my reader be unable to accept this view, ill- 



Bible Harmony. 293 

sistincv rather that there is a sin that shall never be 
forgiven, still there is nothing in the passage to teach 
the endlessness of punishment ; hence that doctrine 
receives from it no support. We cannot minutely 
examine the other scriptures that are relied upon to 
prove the possibility of committing a sin that hath 
never forgiveness. They certainly express awful 
possibilities of retribution in the future, but nothing 
to indicate that that retribution will be never-ending. 
However we explain these scriptures, they at least 
give no support to the dogma we oppose. 

The case of Judas is sometimes appealed to in proof 
of this dogma. But again I call attention to the fact 
that there is nothing in connection with the history 
of the arch-traitor to prove the endlessness of torment. 
The subject of the second death we have already 
considered in chap. xii. But I would also remind 
the reader in relation to this subject, that endless 
torments cannot be proved thereby. The lake of fire 
and brimstone, " which is the second death " (Rev. 
xxi. 8), would be more likely to indicate a total 
destruction of the wicked, than their eternal exist- 
ence in torments. 

We come now to the undying worm and the 
quenchless fire (Mark ix. 43-50). 

" If thy hand offend thee, cut it off ; it is better 
for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two 
hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be 
quenched ; where their worm dieth not, and the fire 
is not quenched." 

This latter declaration is repeated in verses 46 and 



294 Bible Harmony. 

48; but it will be found that these two verses are 
omitted in the new version ; they are interpolations, 
introduced by some over-zealous advocate of endless 
woe to heighten the effect and intensify the lurid- 
ness of the language. Now the question we have 
to consider is this : What is there in this passage 
to indicate the eternity of punishment ? The quench- 
less fire and the undying worm, would be the reply. 
But do these symbols necessarily teach the end- 
lessness of suffering ? Is there no other possible 
explanation? Probably no one will deny but that 
the passage may be explained in some other way. 
The point for us to decide then would be what ex- 
planation of this passage would best harmonize with 
the general teaching of the Word? An answer to 
this question would lead any careful, unprejudiced 
searcher for truth to reject the interpretation that 
involves the doctrine of endless woe. We have 
abundantly shown that the general teaching of the 
scripture is overwhelmingly in favor of " the restitu- 
tion of all things." How shall we understand then 
the undying worm and the quenchless fire? The 
Avorm in scripture is a symbol of corruption and 
death (see Job xvii. 14; xix. 26; xxiv. 20 ; Isa. xiv. 
11). In accordance with this idea, an undying worm 
would be one that does not cease its devouring until 
that upon which it feeds is entirely consumed — a 
worm that cannot be interrupted or stopped. Worms 
feed upon dead carcasses; and this is in harmony 
with the parallel passage in Isa. lxvi. '21. thai we 
have already considered, where it is plainly indicated 



Bible Harmony. 295 

that the worm feeds upon dead carcasses, corpses ; 
therefore this symbol does not teach endless life in 
misery. A quenchless fire is one that cannot be ex- 
tinguished ; it may burn out when all upon which it 
can feed is consumed, but it cannot be put out; a 
fire that cannot be quenched is not necessarily one 
that will burn forever, but simply one that will burn 
until everything combustible within its reach is con- 
sumed. Thus this symbol does not necessarily teach 
an endless hell. 

Moreover, we have the most satisfactory evidence, 
right in the passage itself, that the Saviour never 
intended to teach endless torments thereby. Read 
the whole passage in the new version, beginning 
with verse 42, to the end of the chapter, and notice 
especially how verses 49 and 50 are connected by 
the conjunction "for," and mark the significance of 
this connection. What connection is there between 
these last two verses and that which precedes, if 
the passage is to be understood as teaching endless 
torment? None at all. But if we understand the 
word " fire " to be used in the sense so often occur- 
ring elsewhere in scripture, i.e. as the means of 
purifying and purgation, then the force of the infer- 
ential " for," and the relation of the accompanying 
declaration to the preceding verses, is fully apparent. 
Certainly, every one must see that something good 
and beneficial is referred to in these last two verses. 
" For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is 
good, but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith 
will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be 
at peace one with another." 



296 Bible Harmony. 

Notice that " every one " is to be salted with fire 
(compare 1 Cor. iii. 11-15) ; this certainly is for 
their good, for " salt is good," and fire is good, for 
some shall be " saved by fire." As another has said, 
" it is a purifying fire, that shall do the work of salt, 
when salt has failed ; it is the refiner's fire of the day 
of the Lord (Mai. iii. 3) which shall purge and 
purify, as gold and silver. For it is not only those 
who have refused to make the great earthly sacrifices 
(cut off the hand or pluck out the eye) — not only 
the offenders of Christ's " little ones " (verse 42) — 
who are to be cast into hell fire, but every one shall 
be salted with fire. Of all interpretations of this 
passage, the least tenable, even on grammatical and 
exegetical grounds, is that which applies it to end- 
less torments. Fire, in scripture, is the element of 
life (Isa. iv. 5), of purification (Mai. iii. 8), of 
atonement (Lev. xvi. 27), of transformation (2 Pet. 
iii. 10) ; but never of preservation alive for pur- 
poses of torment. 

The Old-Testament use of the expression, "the 
fire shall not be quenched " (literally, the unquench- 
able fire), also shows plainly that no such doctrine as 
endless torments is meant to be taught by it. 1 The 
last place where it occurs (Isa. lxvi. 24), which is 
the one we have already noticed, is especially against 
the endless torment view, as we have seen: and 
this passage is the very one that Mark ix. 44 is 

1 This expression occurs: Lev. vi. 13 ; 2 Kings xxii. IT ; 2Chron, 

wxiv. 25; ls;i. xwiv. 10 ; Jer. vii. 20; xvii. 27; x\i. 12; l'.vk. 
xx. 17 ; Isa. lxvi. 24. 



Bible Harmony. 297 

taken from. Thus, from all considerations, it is 
evident that this passage in Mark does not teach 
endless torment. 

We come now to the final support of this doctrine, 
those scriptures that speak of the future punishment 
of the wicked as everlasting. This is the great 
stronghold of this doctrine ; that is, in the estimation 
of those who believe it, or try to believe it, or think 
they ought to believe it. The strongest scripture 
upon this point is doubtless the last verse of Matt, 
xxv. : " These shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment, but the righteous into life eternal." 

This passage is considered by many as absolutely 
decisive on this subject, teaching positively, as they 
suppose, the doctrine of endless torments. The argu- 
ment is about as follows : The same word in the 
original (ceoniori) is used to express the duration of 
the life of the righteous and the punishment of the 
wicked; the life of the righteous is of course unend- 
ing ; hence the punishment of the wicked is also end- 
less. This argument seems very conclusive to many 
minds, and yet a little study and comparison of scrip- 
ture will show us that it is entirely misleading. 

We have considered in chap. xii. the Bible teach- 
ing in regard to life and death; we have learned 
that " the life that is life indeed " is spiritual- 
mindedness, knowledge of God and Christ — this is 
life seonial ; while death is the opposite of this ; " to 
be carnally minded is death"; estrangement and 
alienation from God, and ignorance of him — this is 
death. It will be seen (as we have also already 



298 Bible Harmony. 

noticed) that seonial life, thus defined by the Lord 
Jesus himself, is not a life of a certain duration, but 
of a certain kind; the word ceonial is not a time 
word, denoting the extent of the life, but a descrip- 
tive word, denoting its nature. To illustrate, take 
the words annual and diurnal ; these are time words 
meaning once a year, once a day — yearly, daily; 
again, take the words vernal, autumnal; these are 
descriptive words meaning spring-like, autumn-like, 
or " fallish," as we sometimes say. Such a word is 
ceonial, i.e. age-like, of or belonging to the future 
ages ; anything is seonial that is of the same general 
character as those ages. Now notice how exactly 
this explanation harmonizes with direct scripture 
statements ; aeonial life is knowledge of God and 
Christ (John xvii. 3) ; and this — knowledge of 
God — is the one great characteristic of the future 
ages ; in this respect those future ages are contrasted 
with the present and the past. Now (and in the 
past thus far) " Darkness covers the earth and gross 
darkness the people " ; " they know not, neither will 
they understand"; " God is not in all their thoughts.*' 
This is the general condition of the world, "with- 
out God and with hope"; "alienated from the life 
of God through the ignorance that is in them." In 
contradistinction to this dark and dismal condition of 
things, the future a^es shall be bright and glorious 
— flooded with the knowledge of God. bk The know] 
edge of God shall cover the earth as the waters 
cover the sea"; "and they shall not teach every 
man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saving. 



Bible Harmony. 299 

know the Lord; for all shall know him, from the 
least to the greatest." Take a concordance and 
look at the word know, and its various derivatives, 
knew, knowing, etc., and see what an immense 
amount of scripture there is about knowing the Lord ; 
look up the subject throughout the Bible and notice 
how God makes himself known, and what a blessing 
it is to know him, and especially notice how all shall 
know him in the future ages, — and this is life seonial; 
i.e. the life of, or belonging to, " the ages to come." 
Surely it must be plain from these scriptures and 
considerations what seonial life is; not a life of a 
certain length, whether endless or otherwise, but a 
certain kind of life, or we might say a certain man- 
ner of living — in the knowledge of God, in harmony 
and union with him. 

The absolute endlessness of the life of the re- 
deemed is settled, not by this passage, but by other 
scripture perfectly plain and positive; as, for ex- 
ample, " Neither can they die any more " (Luke xx. 
36) ; " This mortal shall put on immortality," liter- 
ally, deathlessness, the same word that is applied to 
God, " who only hath immortality." Again, the re- 
deemed are to be like Christ, and he is made a high 
priest, " not after the law of a carnal commandment, 
but after the power of an endless life " (Heb. vii. 16). 
The word here rendered endless is not seonial, but is 
one that means indissoluble, indestructible, and is 
never applied to the duration of future punishment. 
There is a difference, then, between " endless life " 
and " seonial life " ; the former means an indestruc- 



300 Bible Harmony. 

tible existence like God's ; the latter is the life of the 
ages to come, knowledge of God and Christ. 

Even when applied to God, seonial does not mean 
endless. It would, in fact, sound utterly incongruous 
to speak of the " endless God " ; and no such idea is 
meant by the word. The phrase " seonial God " 
occurs only once in the New Testament (Rom. xvi. 
26), and right in the same connection we have proof 
positive that the word does not mean endless ; for first 
the apostle speaks of " the ceonial times " (translated 
in King James' version, " since the world began," and 
absurdly rendered in the new version "times eter- 
nal"), in which case seonial cannot mean endless, for 
to talk about endless times is a flat contradiction of 
terms ; then the apostle speaks of the " seonial God," 
by which expression he simply indicates the fact that 
God through " seonial times," i.e. age-times, is work- 
ing out his gracious plans, his " purpose of the ages," 
until " all things are made new." 

It is important to understand the real force of this 
word ceonial; it is the main and almost the sole prop 
of the dogma of endless woe ; if this word means 
endless ■ — if that is its sole and necessary meaning — 
then that dogma is established, and we must accept 
the doctrine or reject the Bible. But no scholar will 
claim that the word of itself means endless;* on the 
contrary, it is admitted on every hand, including 
writers that fully believe in the current creeds, that 
the word of itself does not mean endless. As an 
example of this I will refer to the Bible commentaries 
of Dr. Lang, which are of the highest authority in 



Bible Harmony. 301 

the church. In the comment on Eccl. i. 4, "The 
earth abide th forever " (for the ages), we have the 
following criticism by Dr. Tayler Lewis on the words 
olam and ceon. The reader will understand that the 
word olam is the Hebrew word equivalent to ceon in 
the Greek. Dr. Lewis first admits (page 47) that 
these words do not mean eternity, because they both 
have plurals, olamim, ceones, i.e. the ages ; of course 
it would be absurd to talk about the eternities. Then 
on the following page (48) he says : " It may be 
thought that this view of olam and ceon as having 
plurals, and therefore not in themselves denoting 
absolute endlessness, or infinity of time, must weaken 
the force of certain passages in the New Testament, 
especially of that most solemn sentence, Matt. xxv. 
46. This, however, comes from a wrong view of 
what constitutes the real power of the impressive lan- 
guage there employed. The preacher, in contending 
with the Universalist, or Restorationist, would com- 
mit an error, and, it may be, suffer a failure in his 
argument, should he lay the whole stress of it on the 
etymological or historical significance of the words 
ceon, ceones, and attempt to prove that, of themselves, 
they necessarily carry the meaning of endless dura- 
tion." After trying to show that although the idea 
of endlessness is not contained in the word ceonial, 
yet it is implied in " that dread aspect of finality that 
appears, not in single words, but in the language 
taken as a whole," he continues thus : " JEonion, from 
its adjective form, may perhaj)S mean an existence 
or duration measured by aeons or worlds (taken as 



302 Bible Harmony. 

the measuring unit), just as our present world, or 
seon, is measured by years or centuries. But it 
would be more in accordance with the plainest ety- 
mological usage to give it simply the sense of olamic 
or ceonicy or to regard it as denoting, like the Jewish 
olam Tiabba, the world to come. These shall go away 
into the punishment of the world [age] to come, 
and these into the life of the world [age] to come. 
This is all we can etymologically make of the word 
in this passage." 

This testimony from one thoroughly competent to 
decide as to the meaning of the original word, and 
one who believes in the eternity of punishment, is 
very conclusive. The word ceonial, even he admits, 
and indeed declares, does not mean endless, but of, 
or belonging to, the ages to come. 

All this evidence (and I might easily increase it 
to almost any extent) clearly shows the true meaning 
of this word ceonial. Literally, it is simply " of " the 
age," or, at most, " age-long " ; and not in one single 
instance does the noun ceon mean " eternity," or 
the adjective ceonion mean "eternal," i.e. "endless." 
Thus, when the real significance of this word ceonial 
is understood, it will be seen that it gives no support 
to the doctrine of endless torments. As seonia] life 
is a certain hind of life, as we have scon, so aeonial 
punishment is a certain kind of punishment ; in 
neither case docs the word mean endless; thai is not 
the significance of the word at all : but it describes 
the nature of the life and of the punishment. 

It is important to notice at this point that the word 



Bible Harmony. 303 

rendered " punishment " in this passage refers espe- 
cially to that kind of punishment that is for the cor- 
rection and improvement of the one punished. The 
original word (kolashi) primarily means ' pruning ; 
thence it comes to mean punishment, chastisement, 
correction. This word is entirely out of joint with 
the idea of endless torment, which would correct no 
one. We prune vines, trees, etc., to improve them ; 
so the punishment indicated by this word is for the 
improvement and bettering of the subject. The use 
of this word in this scripture positively precludes the 
idea of eternal misery ; it could not refer to any such 
punishment ; in fact, it is a misnomer to call endless 
torment a punishment ; for, properly used, the latter 
word carries the idea of correction, discipline, im- 
provement ; so with the original word in this passage 
— these shall go away into seonial pruning, or correc- 
tion — this is the force of the word, and thus it may 
be seen that this word is in perfect harmony with the 
meaning of aeonial, and entirely out of harmony with 
the endless torment idea. The force of the passage 
is that the wicked shall be subjected to the punish- 
ment, the correction, the discipline of the future ages, 
while the righteous shall enjoy the life of that bright 
era. We have seen that the future ages are the 
periods of judgment, probation, trial, and unto this 
judgment shall "they that have done evil" come 
forth, and thereby shall they be corrected. We have 
also seen wliat the life of those ages is — knowledge 
of God and Christ flooding the earth, filling every 
heart — this is the life eeonial, and unto this life shall 



304 Bible Harmony. 

" they tnat nave done good " come forth ; and so the 
one class shall go forth unto aeonial punishment, and 
the other into life seonial ; but in neither case does 
the word mean endless ; much less does it have any 
reference to never-ending misery. These considera- 
tions remove this word also from the support of the 
dogma we oppose, and leave it without any scriptural 
support whatever. 

Thus we have examined all the scripture that can 
by any means be made to give support to this dogma 
of endless woe. Some other scriptures may occur to 
the reader that are supposed to favor this doctrine 
(like, for instance, Heb. vi. 4-6, and x. 26-31), but 
if these passages be carefully considered, it will be 
seen that, however they be understood, — even though 
they be taken to teach a hopeless, remediless doom, — 
still there is nothing in them to necessarily imply 
endless, conscious suffering. If this awful doctrine 
has any scriptural support, it must come from just 
two classes of scripture ; viz. those that speak of the 
undying worm and the quenchless fire, and those 
that represent the punishment of the wicked as 
eeonial ; these two props constitute its sole scriptural 
support; or, at least, it will be admitted by the 
strongest advocate of this doctrine, that if these two 
props were removed, the doctrine would fall, for its 
inferential support from other doubtful scripture 
would not sustain it for a moment without these. 
Now I ask the candid reader if it lias not been shown 
in this chapter that the doctrine of endless woe is not 
sustained by these two classes of scripture? At 



Bible Harmony. 305 

least, it must be admitted that another explanation of 
these scriptures is possible ; and this explanation is 
fully sustained, as we have seen, by other scripture, 
and by the general teaching of the Word ; this ex- 
planation must be ignored by those who hold to the 
eternal torment view, and they must insist upon the 
one interpretation of these scriptures that harmonizes 
with their view, and so build the whole monstrous 
dogma upon these two props ; surely it is exceedingly 
unwise to base such a tremendous tenet upon so 
scant and so doubtful a foundation ; and especially 
since in so doing one must oppose the whole sweep 
and scope of Bible teaching, which, as we have abun- 
dantly shown, is grandly accordant with the view of 
the final abolishment of all evil, and the " restitution 
of all things." We have seen how true this is of the 
Old Testament, and many passages to the same effect 
have also been cited from the New Testament ; but 
we will briefly refer to still other scripture in this 
line, that the reader may more clearly realize and 
appreciate this general teaching of the Word. I shall 
quote or refer to these scriptures with few comments, 
as the simple Bible language is abundantly plain 
enough to fully establish the truth. 

" The Son of man is come to save that which was 
lost." Will he do it, or will there be lost ones for- 
ever ? " God sent not his Son into the world to con- 
demn the world, but that the world through him 
might be saved." Here we have the purpose an- 
nounced for wdiich Christ was sent into the world 
— "that the world through him might be saved"; 



306 Bible Harmony. 

will this purpose be carried out ? will the world 
be saved ? Jesus is the " Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world." If the sin of the world 
be taken away, will not the world thereby become 
sinless (see also John iv. 42 ; vi. 33, 48, 51) ? " Jesus 
giveth life unto the world." John xii. 32, 47 : "I 
will draw all men unto me " ; also 1 John ii. 2 : " He 
is the propitiation [mercy-seat] for the sins of the 
whole world " ; also 1 John hi. 8 ; iv. 14. 

Now let us look at the writings of the Apostle 
Paul. The great apostle did not hesitate to affirm 
that he had not shunned to declare the whole counsel 
of God, and that he had kept back nothing that was 
profitable to the church (Acts xx. 20, 27), and yet 
we do not find one single passage in all his writings 
(constituting as they do a very large portion of the 
New-Testament scriptures) that, properly interpreted, 
gives any support to the doctrine of endless woe. 
There is one passage in 2 Thess. i. 9 which speaks of 
certain ones being punished with " everlasting de- 
struction " ; but all the force this passage has in favor 
of endless torments is derived from the word axmial, 
rendered " everlasting," and that we have shown 
does not mean endless; and even if it did, this pas- 
sage would not teach endless, conscious suffering, 
but rather annihilation ; for endless destruction would 
seem to be total and absolute extinction o( being, 
rather than an eternal life in misery. So also with 
other declarations that the apostle makes, like those 
for instance in Heb. vi. and \. : though we might put 
upon them the harshest construction possible, yet 



Bible Harmony. 307 

they cannot be made of themselves to imply endless, 
conscious suffering. It is impossible to suppose that 
Paul could have believed in this tremendous doctrine, 
and yet give no plain statement of it in all his writ- 
ings that have come down to us ; this condition of 
things seems to indicate that he believed nothing of 
the kind; and this is all the more certain when we 
notice what Paul left unsaid in various passages, 
where, if he had believed this dogma, he could scarcely 
have failed of announcing it in unmistakable terms ; 
see, for example, Rom. ii. 8, 9. Here the apostle is 
declaring in set terms the punishment of the wicked, 
and yet he says not one word of any such thing as an 
endless hell ; is it possible that Paul could have be- 
lieved in this dogma and yet not have given some 
expression of it in such connection ? See, again, Gal. 
v. 19-21 : The apostle here enumerates the " works of 
the flesh," and then he declares " they whicji do such 
things shall" — what? be lost forever? be consigned 
to an endless hell ? This is what we should expect 
him to say had he believed in that doctrine. But 
he simply says, "shall not inherit the kingdom of 
God " ; they may be saved " so as by fire " ; but they 
shall not obtain the "high calling." In the same 
way notice Phil. iii. 18, 19. The above facts, that 
Paul nowhere enunciates this dreadful doctrine, and 
the marked omission of it in connections where, had 
he believed it, he could hardly have failed to have 
given expression to it, are to me strong evidence that 
the apostle believed no such doctrine. 

Having thus noticed the significance of what Paul 



308 Bible Harmony. 

left unsaid, we pass to observe the numerous expres- 
sions and declarations of infinite grace and universal 
hope with which his writings abound, which, while 
they are totally irreconcilable with the endless tor- 
ment view, are most perfectly in harmony with the 
final " restitution of all things." 

First, I ask the reader to study the fifth chapter of 
Romans, and notice Paul's " much mores " ; see what 
the commentaries say about this chapter, and then 
study it for yourself and mark how the apostle labors 
to set forth the superabounding grace of God — more 
than sufficient — ay, "much more" — to undo and 
remedy all the baneful effects of sin. "Where sin 
abounded grace did much more abound ; that as sin 
has reigned unto death [i.e. universally, over all the 
race], even so might grace reign through righteous- 
ness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." 

What more could be said to prove the final and 
universal " restitution of all things " ? — to indicate 
the glorious fact that the provision God has made for 
man's recovery from the fall, is more than amply suf- 
ficient to accomplish that object, and that grace shall 
finally have a complete and absolute triumph? Can 
such language as this be made to comport with the 
eternity of evil ? Is it possible to reconcile it with a 
doctrine which involves God in the necessity of main- 
taining forever a demon-kept prison-house, wherein 
shall be incarcerated the incorrigible and blasphem- 
ing wretches whom he has been unable to redeem by 
his grace or to conquer by his love? And finally, is 
it possible that Paul could have believed in endless 



Bible Harmony. 309 

torments and yet utter such words as these ? What 
will you do with this scripture ? Will you try to 
harmonize the very few texts that seem to favor end- 
less punishment with this glorious declaration of uni- 
versal redemption ; or will you crush out the life and 
soul of this passage in order to make it comport with 
a doctrine of horror that makes God's redemptive 
scheme a partial failure, and stamps his creative work 
as a wretched abortion ? For my part, I glory in this 
scripture ; I would not abate its universality a hair's 
breadth ; but would rather thank God that his grace 
is so immense that it sinks, and overwhelms, and 
obliterates the sin — " the sin of the world " — so that 
at last there shall be a stainless and a perfect crea- 
tion. 

We have studied a portion of the eighth chapter 
of Romans in chap, iv., and have seen how broad 
and universal is its teaching in regard to the final 
deliverance of " the whole creation " ; read the whole 
chapter in this connection, and mark especially its 
closing words. The eleventh chapter of this same 
epistle is another wonderful setting forth of the 
superabounding grace of God. " God hath concluded 
all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all." 
Well may we exclaim, in view of such wonderful 
grace, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his 
judgments and his ways past finding out ! " Now see 
1 Cor. xv. : " As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall 
all be made alive." See also 2 Cor. v. 18-21 ; Eph. 
i. 7-10 ; Phil. ii. 10, 11; in connection with this last 



310 Bible Harmony. 

passage see Isa. xlv. 20-24, with Paul's comment on 
it in Rom. xiv. 11, new version, margin — " every 
knee shall bow and every tongue shall give praise to 
Gocl " ; and finally, see the fulfilment of this glorious 
prediction set forth in Rev. v. 13, new version, where 
John declares that he heard " every created thing " 
praising God. I should like to know where there is 
any room in this grand peace jubilee of the universe 
for an endless hell, with its countless damned, mak- 
ing an eternal discord in this glad acclaim of praise ? 
Furthermore, see Phil. iii. 21 ; Col. i. 20 ; 1 Tim. 
ii. 4-6 ; Tit. ii. 11, new version. I might quote many 
other scriptures to the same effect, but the limits of 
this work forbid. I have cited enough to show that 
the general drift of the entire Word is utterly opposed 
to the doctrine against which I write, and is over- 
whelmingly in favor of the final deliverance of the 
"whole creation." Suppose there were a half-dozen 
scriptures in the Bible that might be made to 
teach endless torments, yet these scriptures being 
opposed to the scores that I have quoted on the other 
side, what ought we to do ? Try to harmonize the 
scores with the half-dozen? Surely not, but to har- 
monize the half-dozen with the scores. Have I not 
shown that the general drift and tenor of all scrip- 
tare is opposed to endless punishment? Where one 
passage can be quoted that seems to favor that view, 
a dozen at least may be cited to oppose it. What, 
then, should be our conclusion? Nothing else but 
that the dogma of endless torments must be false; 
and this ought to be our conclusion even though 



Bible Harmony. 311 

there should be some scriptures that seemed to plainly 
support it. We should endeavor to reconcile the few 
with the many, rather than the many with the few. 
But in our examination we have found that this doc- 
trine has barely two props upon which it can lean, 
and these can be readily reconciled with the opposite 
view, " the restitution of all things." Where, then, is 
the ground for this awful doctrine to stand upon? 
It has no true scriptural foundation, surely. Who 
wants to cling to it, then ? For my part, I am glad to 
shake it off as a horrible nightmare of the past, and 
walk out into the glorious sunlight of a " larger 
hope," that lifts the veil of a bright and happy future 
for every son and daughter of the race. 



CHAPTER XV. 

CREATION. 

In creation God gives outwardness, existence, to 
the archetypal thoughts of his mind. Everything in 
creation expresses a divine thought; that divine 
thought is its spirit; i.e. its real, true meaning in 
the economy of God ; and to apprehend that spirit 
is to recognize God in his works ; and to recognize 
or know God is life: thus creation is always con- 
summated in life — that is its end ; though it be hut 
the creation of a mass of inanimate clay, the pur- 
pose of such creation ever and always, in the last 
analysis, is life ; and since the highest life — or per- 
haps we can better understand it if we say. the 
highest living — is that of the Creator himself, hence 
all creation tends to bring us to the life of the 
Creator; and thus in an endless, but ever-widening 
circle, does God express himself in creation, that 
man may at the last receive his exact impress : it 
was only by going out of himself, so to speak, that 
God could ever bring man into himself, and thus 
effect the at-one-ment. "That they all may be 
one" — "perfect in one"; in no other way, except 
in one, could we become perfect — in God's image 
and likeness. 
312 



Bible Harmony. 313 

I have said that everything in creation expresses a 
divine thought, and that this divine thought is its 
spirit or true meaning in God's universe. In other 
words, everything is a revelation of God, which prop- 
osition necessarily follows from the great truth we 
have already learned that God is in everything, or 
all things are of God. Everything in nature and 
providence reveals God, every rock, every blade of 
grass, every plant — the very weeds that grow in 
our gardens, as well as the grander and mightier 
works of nature. I cannot think that anything is 
so small or so insignificant that its existence is pur- 
poseless ; whatever is, is for a purpose, and that purpose 
is God's thought in its creation ; and this is true, not 
only of the works of nature, great and small, but 
also of the events of God's providence, whether they 
come to us individually, or to communities, states, 
nations, or the world at large, — all reveal God. There 
is something of God in all things, and that is its 
spirit. So, too, all truth and knowledge is of God; 
whether it be the truths of mathematics or of revela- 
tion ; whether it be the knowledge of how to tell the 
age of a horse by looking into his mouth, or the 
knowledge that fits the saint to "judge angels" 
(1 Cor. vi. 3) ; and thus all truth is sacred; he who 
plies a mechanical trade, or worthily fills a school- 
teacher's place, or honestly endeavors to alleviate the 
physical sufferings of his fellows, is engaged in a 
work as holy as he who preaches the gospel ; all 
truth in every department should be pursued with 
the object to " find out God " (Job xi. 7), and when 



314 Bible Harmony. 

it is thus sought the secular and the sacred will 
be blended into one, and head and heart shall be 
united. 

Pilate asked the question — of him who is the 
truth — " What is truth ? " but he did not wait for 
an answer because he was not " of the truth " ; if I" 
err not, an exhaustive answer to Pilate's question 
would be — knowledge of God; all truth, abstract or 
concrete, is knowledge of God — in nature or in 
providence or in grace, the lowliest and simplest 
truth, as well as the highest and most profound. 
To the one who realizes this, everything that comes 
to him, and all things around him, are a continual 
surprise and delight — a perfect transcript (so far as 
he can understand it) of the divine mind ; he walks 
through the world with sandals removed, as treading 
on holy ground, everywhere stamped with the foot- 
prints of the Creator — and with head uncovered as 
one who at any turn may meet his Lord. 

With many Christians their religion is something 
entirely external ; it is not a life, but simply a dress 
— a cloak. To such ones God is far off. He is not 
available for help and counsel and guidance in ordi- 
nary matters. He is a being that the}^ must approach 
only at stated intervals, and with a solemn face and 
a particular attitude; the religious life of such ones is 
exceedingly strained and artificial; there is altogether 
too much self-consciousness, and too much regard for 
the "proprieties" of the occasion. We have road 
perhaps how the children of some earthly monarchs 
visit their parents at stated times. A certain hour 



Bible Harmony. 315 

of the day or week is set apart for the ceremony. 
The royal parents are seated in state, the children, 
accompanied by their nurses and attendants and 
dressed with great precision, appear and, advancing 
to the king and queen, kneel and kiss their hands, 
and after a few formal words they retire, all the time 
preserving an air of great gravity and decorum. In 
about the same way do very many Christians hold 
themselves toward their Heavenly Father. If their 
religion does not creep it struts, and that is worse ; 
approach to God is an unusual and a state occasion ; 
certain ceremonies and solemnities must always be 
resorted to, and the whole affair is made a matter of 
form and conventionality. 

Now all this simply shows how artificial and unreal 
their religious life is ; or rather, it shows that their 
religion is not life at all, but merely an outside gar- 
ment to be put on for particular occasions, and when 
the occasion is past to be laid aside entirely until 
another such occasion. What then is the real life of 
such ones? You will not find out by calling upon them 
or by meeting them occasionally in a prayer-meeting 
or a social gathering ; on such occasions also they have 
a conventional garment which completely disguises 
the real life. Go and live with them every day in the 
week for a year — in the kitchen, in the nursery, and 
in all the household cares and duties ; or on the 
street, in the work-shop, in the counting-room, and 
amid all the intricacies and perplexities of a business 
life. What for? to discover their faults and fail- 
ings ? Bless you, no. You had better not look for 



316 Bible Harmony. 

them, lest you be put to shame at their superiority 
over yourself, or lest you be deceived and puffed up 
with spiritual pride by the idea that you are better 
than they. All you need to know is, Mow much they 
make of God. What place, if any, does he occupy 
in their lives ? and thus you will perceive at once 
whether they have the life of God or not. When we 
look thus into the lives of very many people we find 
them almost entirely destitute of the divine element. 
" God is not in all their thought " ; they are practi- 
cally god-less, " without God." 

Now how radically and materially different is the 
life of one who sees u God in everything ! " Who 
refers all things to him; who receives all things as 
from him. Who admits no second causes, but rec- 
ognizes only the first great Cause. Like Job, who 
referred even "the works of the devil" to God; for 
he says, " Shall Ave receive good at the hand of God, 
and shall we not receive evil ? " It was Satan who 
was bringing evil upon Job, but the old patriarch 
refuses to recognize him, but attributes it all (and 
rightly, too) to God. So " the man of God " con- 
sciously lives and moves, and has his being in Him. 
He lives, in his measure, "the life of God"; that is 
to say, he lives after God's style. 

Perhaps the greatest mystery that presents itself to 
us in this world of mystery is the mystery of life. 
What is life? What is it in its essence? We do not 
know: all we know about it is its phenomena, its 
outward manifestations; what it is in itself is utterly 
unknown to us; hence, when we talk about different 



Bible Harmony. 317 

kinds of life, what we really mean is different kinds of 
living. Of life in itself of any kind we know nothing; 
bnt in the manner of life we recognize great differences. 
When avc say a sailor's life is a dog's life, we mean 
that their manner of life is hard and disagreeable. In 
the same way we say a soldier's life is one of perils 
and deprivation* ; of a rich man we say, he lives the 
life of a prince ; of a gay and frivolous woman, her's 
is a butterfly existence ; of a poor man, his is a life of 
toil and want, etc., etc. In all such cases of the use 
of the term life, we are not referring to different kinds 
of life considered in its essence, but of different man- 
ners or styles of living. The Bible uses the word in 
the same way. For example, Jesus said, " Take heed, 
and beware of covetousness ; for a man's life consist- 
eth not in the abundance of the things which he pos- 
sesses." Again he says, " Take no thought for your 
life, what ye shall eat, neither for the body, what ye 
shall put on; the life is more than meat, and the 
body is more than raiment." Our Lord is not here 
speaking of life in itself, — bare existence, — but of a 
person's manner or style of living. 

Now when I speak of possessing the life of God, I 
mean that in some slight degree the believer may live 
after God's style. He may in a measure have his 
peace ; he may avail himself of God's unchangeable- 
ness ; he may by faith make God's omnipotence his 
own (Mark x. 27 with ix. 23), and so, hiding under 
the shadow of the Almighty, he may become a child 
of the Highest (Luke vi. 35) in all kindness, mercy, 
forbearance, and love ; in a word, he may view all 



318 Bible Harmony. 

things from God's standpoint, instead of from man's, 
and so, in a measure, live the life of God ; we may 
come into such close relationship to him as that our 
life in a great measure will run along in harmony 
with his ; we shall live with God ; his manner of life 
will be ours ; his standpoint will be ours ; his appre- 
hension of and attitude toward creation will be ours ; 
his thoughts and feelings will be ours ; we may even 
say Iris attributes will be ours, his peace, his power, 
his wisdom, his goodness — himself, will be ours: 
our life will blend with his ; his life will become ours. 
"For all things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, 
or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things 
present, or things to come, all are yours ; and ye are 
Christ's, and Christ is God's." All this, of course, is 
not in its perfection, — not in its fulness, — it is not 
" what we shall be " ; that " doth not yet appear " ; 
and yet it is a real experience, a positive fact — the 
life of God begun here and now, although, in the per- 
fect and fullest sense we are not made alive until 
"his coming" (1 Cor. xv. 23). 

Surely the advanced Christian is conscious of such 
a life begun in him, " the inward man " ; and it is 
" being renewed day by day"; it is a secret, hidden 
life, "which no man knoweth, saving he that receiv- 
eth it"; it makes him totally different from the 
natural man; everything looks different to him from 
what it does to the one who is destitute of this life : 
the interpretation that he would put upon events and 
the conclusions he would draw therefrom, are entirely 
different, and in fact ofttimes directly opposite to the 



Bible Harmony. 319 

worldly man's interpretations and conclusions ; where 
the latter sees chance, or wicked men, or perhaps the 
devil, the former sees only God; where the latter 
feels fretted, perplexed, angry, indignant, rebellious, 
the former finds reason for praise, gratitude, and 
thanksgiving ; to him " all things are of God," and 
hence all things are good, and will result in good ; 
and there is nothing that can possibly take place in 
all the wide circle of the universe that shall not in 
the end redound to God's honor and glory, and the 
highest welfare of all his creatures. 

And now mark, all this is part and parcel of the 
creative process, bringing the creature to the life of 
the Creator, which is the end of creation. There is 
no pleasure in lifeless things or things non-intelligent, 
only as they contribute in some way to the enjoyment 
and development of life ; hence, I repeat, life — " the 
life of God " — is to the end of creation. We see 
also in this view how all things contribute to the per- 
fection of creation, and how all things are needful to 
that end. Everything gives God occasion and oppor- 
tunity to reveal himself to man ; for this purpose 
nothing comes amiss ; all things to this end can be 
utilized, the evil as well as the good. The Bible is 
full of illustrations of this truth, viz. how God reveals 
himself to man by means of all things, and, on the 
natural plane, especially by evil things. For this 
purpose he manifested his power and his wrath upon 
Pharaoh and the Egyptians (Ex. vii. 5, 17 ; xiv. 4, 
18), hardening his heart that he should not let the 
people go, that he might work all his pleasure upon 



320 Bible Harmony. 

that devoted people, " to the end that they might 
know the Lord" (Ex. viii. 22). "Even for this 
same purpose did God raise Pharaoh up, that he 
might show his power in him, and that his name 
might be declared throughout all the earth " ; and 
"who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? 
shall the thing formed sa}^ to him that formed it, 
Why hast thou made me thus ? Hath not the potter 
power over the clay of the same lump, to make one 
vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor ? " 
(Rom. ix.). Here again is a very striking illustration 
of how " all things are of God." He is the potter ; 
man is the clay in his hands (Isa. lxiv. 8) ; also we 
see how " he worketh all things after the counsel of his 
own will," and " none can stay his hands, or say unto 
him, what doest thou ? " This case also illustrates 
how God controls and makes use of evil, and for what 
purpose. Surely this whole matter of Israel's slav- 
ery in Egypt was a great evil, and their haughty 
taskmasters were exceedingly wicked in their cruelty 
and injustice, and the king endorsed it all, and he and 
his subjects were justly punished ; and yet the whole 
thing was "of God." Centuries before, God had 
foretold that his people should go down into Egypt 
and be afflicted four hundred years (Gen. xv. 13). 
When the time came God sent them down there 
(Gen. xlvi. 3) ; it was God also who turned the 
hearts of the Egyptians to hate his people, and to 
deal deceitfully with them (Psa. cv. 25), and ho it 
was who hardened Pharaoh's heart that he should not 
let them go until ho had wrought oui all his mighty 



Bible Harmony. 321 

judgments upon tliem. Eleven times in this account 
is it said that God hardened Pharaoh's heart ; and 
Paul makes the statement general in Rom. ix. 
" Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have 
mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." The ap- 
parent injustice of this entirely disappears in the 
light of the plan of the ages ; from the standpoint of 
orthodoxism the account cannot be reconciled with 
justice, equity, and righteousness ; but in the light 
of the Bible teaching of the redemptive work of the 
promised seed in the future ages, all may be adjusted 
and readily explained, as the intelligent and thought- 
ful reader will doubtless perceive ; and finally, the 
purpose of all this was that "all the earth" might 
know the Lord; it was an occasion especially pre- 
pared beforehand — for this same purpose was Pharaoh 
raised up — to the end that God might reveal him- 
self, in certain aspects of his character, to man. If 
the reader will follow out this thought throughout the 
Bible (see the concordance on the word know*), he 
will be surprised, if he has not studied it before, at 
the amount of scripture bearing upon this truth. 

Thus God reveals himself in all things — makes 
himself known; and to know God is life, and life is 
the end of creation ; hence all things contribute to 
the creation of man — all things tend to bring us 
to God's image and likeness ; if all things make God 
known, as they certainly do, since he is in all things, 
then all things tend to life, since to know God is 
life, and this is the consummation of creation. Thus, 
if I err not, we arrive at the true idea of creation, and 



822 Bible Harmony. 

are able to perceive its process through the natural 
as well as the spiritual. 

Thus, moreover, we may perceive how certain it is 
that the original plan of God, which has never been 
altered or disarranged in the least degree, will be 
carried out. It is because Christians fail to see that 
man is not yet created, and that everything around 
him is part and parcel of the creative process, that 
they practically make his salvation depend on him- 
self. According to the common idea, God started 
everything all right ; it was by the sin of man that 
everything was made all wrong, and it is a great 
mercy on the part of God, entirety unmerited by man, 
that he has made any provision at all whereby even 
a portion of the race may be saved; if our theology 
is based upon such an error as this, it is no wonder 
that it is still further vitiated by the idea that man's 
salvation depends on himself. But we have seen 
how false and misleading is this idea ; we are God's 
workmanship; we are -God's husbandry, God's build- 
ing, clay in the hands of the potter ; that is, so far as 
the final accomplishment of the purpose of God is 
concerned ; intermediately man is free, but begin- 
nings and endings are in God's hands — "I am the 
first, and I am the last," saith the Lord : and all 
this is the creative process; if Christians could only 
see this, they would never think of such a thing as 
making man's perfection depend on himself : for 
surely in his creative work God needs no assistance; 
if man's salvation is a new creation, the consumma- 
tion of which is life, then surely it must be all of 



Bible Harmony. 323 

God, and every son and daughter of tlie race may 
rest assured that God's purpose in them individually 
will be ultimately accomplished. I, as God's off- 
spring (Acts xvii. 28 ; compare Psa. lxxxii. 6), may 
be absolutely sure that my Father and my Creator 
will sometime bring me into harmony with himself ; 
for it is impossible to believe that any portion of 
his creation will be out of harmony and at variance 
with him through all eternity ; especially so, since 
he plainly declares that he will ultimately " reconcile 
all things to himself." 

I take it that God has a definite purpose in the 
creation of everything, a definite end in view, and 
that end is certain to be reached soon or later; in 
other words, every creature ultimately fulfils the pur- 
pose of the Creator in its creation. To suppose other- 
wise would be to suppose a failure on the part of the 
Creator, which is unthinkable. The believer's atti- 
tude toward God then might be thus expressed: 
" God has created me for a definite purpose, that pur- 
pose I shall ultimately fulfil in his economy; it is a 
wise and good purpose, one with which I should be 
perfectly satisfied and contented if I only understood 
it all ; toward that end I am continually moving, 
all things tend to advance me in that one direction, 
and I shall surely arrive, I shall surely fulfil the 
purpose of my creation, and all I have to do is to 
leave myself in his hands as clay in the hands of the 
potter, to be fashioned according to his will." It is 
a great satisfaction and pleasure to think of our re- 
lationship to God in this light. God lias something 



324 Bible Harmony. 

in his mind to make of me, and I shall surely become 
that something ; and furthermore, since God is wise 
and good, that something will please and satisfy me 
perfectly. When I reach the place for which God 
created me, and for which he has fitted me, I shall 
have no regret that it is not another place ; but I 
shall realize that it is my place and shall be satisfied, — 
perfectly satisfied with the accomplishment of the 
ever blessed and good will of God in me. I am 
a seed, destined to a certain result ultimately; the 
seed may pass through many vicissitudes in reach- 
ing that result, — like the seed in the hand of the 
Egyptian mummy lying dormant for a thousand 
years, — but still its end is fixed, and that end it will 
reach, and none other. I may frustrate the grace of 
God (Gal. ii. 21), but I cannot frustrate his mil. 
He may say, " let him alone, he is joined to his idol," 
but " he will not cast off forever " ; soon or later 
u he will return, and have compassion, and cast all 
our sins behind our backs." " He turneth man to 
destruction and saith, return, ye children of men." I 
may be disappointed many times in failing to be what 
I would like to be, and what I imagine I might have 
been, and so my experience will correspond to the 
poet's words — 

" Of all sad words by tongue or pen, 
The saddest are these — it might have been." 

And this experience is a part of my training, and by 
it I am continually being advanced toward what in 
the providence of God 1 am to be; and thus — 



Bible Harmony. 325 

" Our place is kept, and it will wait, 
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late : 
No star is ever lost we once have seen, 
We always may be what we might have been ; 
Since good, though only thought, has life and breath, 
And evil in its nature is decay, 
And any hour may blot it all away." 

Let no one say, "This is fatalism." Nay, it is 
godism — if I may reverently use such an expression. 
No one need fear a fatalism that makes God supreme, 
absolute, almighty. In the foregoing remarks I am 
dealing with finalities. God is the first and the last ; 
man is free and responsible intermediately ; but God 
has his way ultimately. He is able to subdue, i.e. 
to harmonize, all things unto himself; himself is 
love, and love has only one way of subduing — by 
harmonizing; and this glorious consummation will 
be reached when all are gathered together in one 
(Eph. i. 10), and God is all in all. 

Thus may the trusting child " rest in God," both 
for himself and for the " whole creation," and with 
the utmost confidence he may commit all his interests 
unto Him as unto 

"A FAITHFUL CREATOR." 



The Spirit of the Word. 



A MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



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BIBLE THOUGHT AND STUDY, 

Devoted to the exposition of the New-Testament doc- 
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